Implementation matters: assessing the effectiveness and sustainment of an obstetric triage program at a high-volume facility in Ghana

BACKGROUND: Maternal mortality remains stubbornly high in Ghana. Current national efforts are focused on improving the quality of care offered in health facilities. Obstetric triage is one intervention that has been proposed to improve the timeliness and appropriateness of care, two key elements of quality. In this study, we describe and evaluate a theory-based implementation approach to introduce obstetric triage into Tema General Hospital, a high-volume maternity hospital in Greater Accra, that blends concepts from implementation science and quality improvement. This implementation project was a first attempt to scale this intervention into a new facility, following initial development in the Greater Accra Regional Hospital (formerly Ridge Hospital) in Accra. METHODS: This was a retrospective mixed-methods evaluation of two stages of implementation: active implementation and sustainment. We triangulated monitoring data captured during active implementation with clinical outcome data (timeliness of first assessment, accuracy of diagnosis, and appropriateness of care plan) from direct observation or patient obstetric triage assessment forms at baseline, at the completion of the active implementation stage, and following a 12-month “washout” period with no contact between hospital staff and the purveyor organization. Finally, we assessed embeddedness of the new triage procedures using the NoMad, a quantitative assessment of constructs from normalization process theory (NPT). RESULTS: Patient waiting time decreased substantially during the study. At baseline, the median arrival-to-assessment waiting time was 70.5 min (IQR: 30.0–443.0 min). Waiting time decreased to 6.0 min (IQR: 3.0–15.0 min) following active implementation and to 5.0 min (IQR: 2.0–10.0 min) during the sustainment period. Accuracy of diagnosis was high at the end of active implementation (75.7% correct) and improved during the sustainment period (to 77.9%). The appropriateness of care plans also improved during the sustainment period (from 66.0 to 78.9%). Per NoMad data, hospital staff generally perceive obstetric triage to be well integrated into the facility. CONCLUSIONS: This theory-based implementation approach proved to be successful in introducing a novel obstetric triage concept to a busy high-volume hospital, despite resource constraints and a short implementation window. Results proved long-lasting, suggesting this approach has high potential for engendering sustainability in other facilities as well. Our approach will be useful to other initiatives that aim to utilize program data to create and test implementation theories. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s43058-023-00527-y.