New Toolkits Can Help Improve Patient Safety for Mothers and Their Newborns

Two new AHRQ toolkits are available to improve the safety culture of labor and delivery units and decrease maternal and neonatal adverse events resulting from poor communication and system failures.

The Toolkits to Reduce Hypertension in Pregnancy and Obstetric Hemorrhage are designed to reduce obstetric hemorrhage and severe high blood pressure during pregnancy, two leading known causes of preventable maternal deaths and severe maternal harms in the United States.

The toolkits include guidance for frontline clinicians and Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health program team leads. The toolkits also include resources such as clinical case scenarios, PowerPoint slides, and e-modules to help clinicians quickly learn specific teamwork behaviors and ways to reliably apply them in their clinical settings.