Training Champs Pump up Perinatal Safety

Maintaining "high reliability" in all Partners HealthCare perinatal units, where the primary focus is patient safety and preventing birth injuries, is the driving force behind a year-long "teamwork training" pilot program at BWH, MGH, Newton-Wellesley Hospital and North Shore Medical Center.

"We want to assure patient safety, rather than assume it," said Allan Frankel, MD, Partners Director of Patient Safety.

The Partners perinatal patient safety pilot program kicked off in January with "train the trainer" sessions for 60 teamwork training champions, including a multidisciplinary team of 18 Labor and Delivery nurses, obstetricians, midwives, residents, neonatologists and anesthesiologists from BWH. These training champs now lead training sessions for staff to reinforce key elements of the program.

Last month, BWH Labor and Delivery staff participated in a simulation drill where nurses, midwives and doctors were summoned to help in a delivery complicated by shoulder dystocia, which occurs when the fetus' shoulders are too large to fit through the birth canal. The drill emphasized using new critical language to clinicians of issues of possible concern without alarming the family.

BWH Perinatal Patient Safety Teamwork Training Champions include: David Acker, MD; Beth Armstrong, RN; Daniela Carusi, MD; Jane Daisy, RN; Lillian Enright, RN; Elizabeth Fein, CNM; Roxane Gardner, MD, MPH; Gladys Gibbs, MD; Paula Gillette, RN; James Greenberg, MD; David Hepner, MD; Margaret Hickey, RN; Andrea Kelly, RN; Miriam Mahler, CNM, MPH; Rafik Mansour, MD, PhD; Julianne Mazzawi, RN; Steven Ringer, MD; Louise Wilkins-Haug, MD, PhD.