The development of quality indicators for the prevention and management of postpartum haemorrhage in primary midwifery care in the Netherlands

BACKGROUND: At present, there are no guidelines on prevention and management of postpartum haemorrhage in primary midwifery care in the Netherlands. The first step towards implementing guidelines is the development of a set of quality indicators for prevention and management of postpartum haemorrhage for primary midwifery supervised (home) birth in the Netherlands. METHODS: A RAND modified Delphi procedure was applied. This method consists of five steps: (1) composing an expert panel (2) literature research and collection of possible quality indicators, (3) digital questionnaire, (4) consensus meeting and (5) critical evaluation. A multidisciplinary expert panel consisting of five midwives, seven obstetricians and an ambulance paramedic was assembled after applying pre-specified criteria concerning expertise in various domains relating to primary midwifery care, secondary obstetric care, emergency transportation, maternal morbidity or mortality audit, quality indicator development or clinical guidelines development and representatives of professional organisations. RESULTS: After literature review, 79 recommendations were selected for assessment by the expert panel. After a digital questionnaire to the expert panel seven indicators were added, resulting in 86 possible indicators. After excluding 41 indicators that panel members unanimously found invalid, 45 possible indicators were assessed at the consensus meeting. During critical evaluation 18 potential indicators were found to be overlapping and two were discarded due to lack of measurability. CONCLUSIONS: A set of 25 quality indicators was considered valid for testing in practice.