PA Perinatal Quality Collaborative Recommends Standards and Quality Measures for Maternity Payment

In response to the rising rates of maternal mortality, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) and its operating arms, WHAMglobal and Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI), have been exploring how maternity value-based payment models can help providers remove unnecessary services and complications, and reinvest in services that matter to the mom and baby dyad. In late 2018, JHF partnered with Network for Excellence in Health Innovation (NEHI) to organize national policy summits on maternity care. One of the recommendations was to convene stakeholders to first identify best practices and quality measures for maternity value-based payment models, which tie a portion of payment to outcomes.

In response, JHF and WHAMglobal leveraged the Policy Group of the Pennsylvania Perinatal Quality Collaborative (PA PQC) to gain consensus on standards of care and meaningful quality measures in response to improvement opportunities. The PA PQC Policy Group convened providers, health plans, regional business groups on health, state agencies, and other stakeholders to develop these recommendations. These recommendations are now available here under "Policy."

The recommendations focus on standards of care and quality measures for improvement opportunities, such as disparities, social determinants of health, substance misuse, mental health, cardiovascular conditions, prenatal care screening, expanded post-partum care, early elective deliveries, and C-sections.