THE TRANSPARENCY IN MATERNITY CARE PROJECT

The Transparency in Maternity Care Project was birthed in February of 2006 by the Grassroots Advocates Committee (GAC) of the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS). The GAC is a volunteer group dedicated to insuring public access to quality of care information specifically related to maternity care providers and institutions. Bay Area Birth Information (BABI) is joining with the GAC to promote The Transparency Project in our community. It is our intention to extend the current social trend toward Transparency in Health Care into the virtually overlooked maternity care arena.

GOALS

We believe that women of childbearing age must have access to information that will help them choose maternity care providers and institutions that are most compatible with their own philosophies and needs. We hope that the Transparency in Maternity Care Project will provide information that will help women make fully informed maternity care decisions.

We also believe that maternity care practitioners and institutions must have access to feedback from their patients. We hope that doctors, midwives, and hospital administrators will find the information generated through the Transparency in Maternity Care Project useful in quality improvement efforts.

 
THREE PRIMARY COMPONENTS OF THE PROJECT

SHARE: At the heart of the project is an on-going, online consumer survey, ‘The Birth Survey’, which asks women to provide feedback about their birth experience with a particular doctor or midwife and within a specific birth environment. Currently, "The Birth Survey" is only available as a pilot in NYC.

CONNECT: Responses will be made available online to other women in their community who are deciding where and with whom to birth. Women can view feedback on hospitals, birth centers, doctors and midwives in their communities.

LEARN: Paired with this experiential data will be official statistics from state departments of health listing obstetrical intervention rates at the facility level. Consumers can view data on hospital and birth center intervention rates and practices. This data will be added to the website as we make it available.

WHEN WILL THE PROJECT BE AVAILABLE IN OUR AREA?

Right now, The Birth Survey is being piloted in New York City only. In order to make the survey available to women in the Bay Area, The Birth Survey must purchase a comprehensive list of all maternity care providers and maternity care facilities in the US. (OBs, CNMs, and Family Practice Docs, hospitals, birth centers. etc) These names and addresses will be added to the drop-down list of providers and facilities in the first section of the survey, so that survey results can be tied to individual providers and facilities. This list cost thousands of dollars and will have to be updated annually for accuracy. You can donate to this national portion of the campaign through www.givemeaning.com.

Next, grassroots activists "on the ground" in our area must obtain the official data necessary to complement the Birth Survey information. We currently have volunteers working to organize the effort to obtain the intervention data. Please let us know if you are interested in being a part of the team to bring the Birth Survey to California.

Thank you to the Birth Network of Northwest Arkansas for their help in creating this page.
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