Impact of an Obstetrical Hospitalist Program on the Safety Events in a Mid-Sized Obstetrical Unit

OBJECTIVE: Because internal medicine hospitalist programs were developed to address issues in medicine such as a need to improve quality, improve efficiency, and decrease healthcare cost, obstetrical (OB) hospitalist models were developed to address needs specific to the obstetrics and gynecology field. Our objective was to compare outcomes measured by occurrence of safety events before and after implementation of an OB hospitalist program in a mid-sized OB unit. METHODS: From July 2012 to September 2014, 11 safety events occurred on the labor and delivery floor. A full-time OB hospitalist program was implemented in October 2014. RESULTS: From October 2014 to December 2016, there was 1 safety event associated with labor and delivery. CONCLUSION: It has been speculated that implementation of an OB hospitalist model would be associated with improved maternal and neonatal outcomes; our regional OB referral hospital demonstrated a statistically significant decrease in OB safety events after the OB hospitalist program implementation.