Collaborative Effort Addressing Maternal Mortality Rates
Published: Aug. 26, 2019
Truth be told, said Robert Bonebrake,
MD, the rise in maternal mortality
rates in the United States could be attributed, in part, to contentment.
“To be honest, there was a sense of ‘We’re the United States; we’re the best’— a sense of complacency.”
Dr. Bonebrake, who specializes in maternal-fetal medicine at Methodist Women’s Hospital, serves as co-medical
director of a collaborative aimed at stopping that trend, which, he said, started about 30 years ago.
The Nebraska Perinatal Quality Improvement Collaborative, which includes all the birthing hospitals in Nebraska, is providing step-by-step, evidence-based protocols geared toward helping health care providers recognize and address conditions that can put mothers at risk of death or injury. The first of the 11 protocols focuses on hypertension in pregnancy. Others address blood clots, hemorrhage and deep vein thrombosis.
