According to new maternity care report, 53 percent of Michigan hospitals with labor and delivery units do not disclose patient safety

DMC Harper-Hutzel only Michigan hospital to meet all standards

NOVI, MICHIGAN – May 5, 2016:  The Economic Alliance for Michigan (EAM), along with The Leapfrog Group, released today its 2016 Maternity Care Report, an in-depth look at one of the leading causes of hospitalizations for privately-insured women ages 19 to 44. According to the report, as analyzed by Castlight Health, while there has been important quality improvements on episiotomies and early elective delivery rates by hospitals, many hospitals are still not meeting national performance targets for quality metrics.

The report reveals that transparency of maternity care remains an issue in Michigan. Fifty-three percent of hospitals with labor and delivery units in the state “declined to respond” to the Leapfrog survey.

“There are major health systems who boast how great their hospitals are to give birth at but yet do not participate in transparency reporting,” said Bret Jackson, president of EAM. “Giving birth, starting a family is a lifetime milestone and patients have the right to know which hospitals are the safest for both baby and mother.”

“Private employers, unions, states, and localities have long pushed for public reporting of these measures, because maternity care is so important to their members,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog. “We believe families deserve to know how hospitals are doing, so they can make good decisions on where to give birth, and avoid unnecessary risks and expense to the mother and the baby.”

Of the 39 reporting hospitals, 33 meet Leapfrog’s early elective delivery rates – inductions or C-sections performed before 39 weeks gestation without medical necessity.  A low early elective delivery rate indicates that the hospital is taking important steps to minimize risks to the mother and baby by delivering too soon.

In Michigan, only one hospital, DMC Harper-Hutzel Hospital in Detroit, satisfied all four measured standards:  episiotomy rates, cesarean sections rates, early elective delivery rates and high-risk deliveries.

Key findings from the Maternity Care Report for Michigan include:

• 13 hospitals meet standards for episiotomy rates: An episiotomy is a once routine incision made in the birth canal during childbirth that is now recommended only for a narrow set of cases. Leapfrog’s target for all hospitals is 5% or less. Hospitals meeting this standard are: Bronson Methodist in Kalamazoo, C.S. Mott in Ann Arbor, DMC Harper-Hutzel in Detroit, Henry Ford Macomb in Clinton Township, Mercy Health Hackley Campus in Muskegon, Mercy Health Saint Mary’s in Grand Rapids, Metro Health in Wyoming, DMC Sinai-Grace in Detroit, Sparrow Carson City Hospital, Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, Spectrum Health Gerber Memorial in Fremont and Spectrum Health United in Greenville.

• Hospitals continue to perform too many C-sections: Leapfrog utilizes the endorsed NTSV C-section measure, and finds (nationally) that at 60% of reporting hospitals, the C-section rate was too high, surpassing Leapfrog’s target rate of 23.9% for all hospitals. Variation is dramatic, ranging from a low as 10% to as high as 54% in one east coast city. Eleven Michigan hospitals fully meet the C-section standard:  Bronson Battle Creek, C.S. Mott in Ann Arbor, Garden City Hospital, DMC Harper-Hutzel in Detroit, Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital, McLaren Macomb in Mount Clemens, Mercy Health Hackley Campus in Muskegon, OSF St. Francis in Escanaba, Spectrum Health United in Greenville, Spectrum Health Zeeland Community Hospital and St. Mary Mercy Hospital in Livonia.

• Many hospitals don’t have adequate experience with high-risk deliveries: Very low birth weight Infants born with complications are more likely to survive if their hospital has an experienced NICU on-site, yet nationally, 78% of hospitals performing high-risk deliveries do not meet Leapfrog’s standard. Of the 21 hospitals with neonatal intensive care services (level III+) only 3 hospitals in Michigan fully meet this standard: DMC Harper-Hutzel Hospital in Detroit, Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids and St. Joseph Mercy Oakland in Pontiac.

The complete Maternity Care Report is available online. Other publicly available resources include:

• Data on all measures, searchable by region or hospital via Leapfrog’s Hospital Survey Results
• State averages on early elective deliveries via Leapfrog’s “Too Early Deliveries” page
• More information on C-section rates by hospital

This report is part of a series of six reports examining key quality and safety measures at hospitals nationwide based on data from the 2015 Leapfrog Hospital Survey of 1,750 U.S. hospitals and analysis provided by Castlight Health. Future publications in the report series will be available at http://www.leapfroggroup.org/HospitalSurveyReport.