Quality in perinatal care: applying performance measurement using joint commission on accreditation of healthcare organizations indicators in Italy

BACKGROUND: Maternal and child health are internationally considered to be among the best measures for assessing health-care quality. The study was carried out with the following aims: 1) to assess the quality of perinatal care (PC) by measuring the frequencies of the five PC indicators developed by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and comparing results with international standards; 2) to examine whether maternal, pregnancy care and neonatal characteristics could be factors associated with the quality of perinatal care hospital performance, measured through these indicators. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed medical charts of women over the age of 18 who experienced delivery in Gynecology/obstetrics wards between January–December 2016, and those of their newborns hospitalized in the Neonatology or Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of a public non-teaching hospital in Catanzaro (Italy). Indicators were calculated according to the methodology specified in the manual for JCAHO measures. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to test the independent association of maternal, pregnancy care and neonatal characteristics on the adherence to JCAHO PC indicators. RESULTS: The records of 1943 women and 1974 newborns were identified and reviewed in order to be included in at least one of the PC indicators. Elective/early-term delivery, was performed in 27.6% of eligible women, far from the recommended goal (0%); cesarean section in nulliparous women with a term, singleton baby in a vertex position exceeded the suggested target of < 24% and the adherence to antenatal steroids administration was suboptimal (87%). Results of the exclusive breastfeeding indicator achieved a better performance (81%) and compliance with the PC-04 indicator was satisfactory with only 0.4% healthcare-associated bloodstream infection developed in eligible newborns. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study performed in Italy that has evaluated the quality of PC by using all the five JCAHO indicators. The application of this feasible set of indicators allowed us to measure several aspects of PC for which there is no standardized monitoring system in Italy. Our findings revealed significant deficiencies in the adherence to recommended processes of PC and suggest that there is still substantial work required to improve care. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12874-019-0722-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.