Purchaser’s Role in Quality Maternity Care – September 2003

Hospitalizations related to childbirth and maternity care are the most frequent reasons for hospital admissions in the United States and in Pennsylvania. In 2002, for people under the age of 65, almost 28 percent of all hospital discharges in Pennsylvania were related to maternity care. They accounted for approximately 13 percent of dollars spent in hospitals and almost 21 percent of all hospital days in this age group. However, expectant mothers are not considered to be “sick” and traditional outcome measures such as mortality rates are not particularly useful because mortality is rare when it comes to maternity care. As a result, this area of health care delivery has not received much attention in regard to quality outcomes studies.