The Women and Newborn Maternity Redesign and reform project commenced in March 2017, restructuring the maternity workforce (internal and external) into closely aligned inter-professional teams servicing a geographically based population and increasing access to the Continuity of Care program are key elements of the redesign. The model incorporates wellness and psychological care within a multidisciplinary framework whilst recognising and managing heightened risk. The needs of the woman and her baby determine whether she requires primary, secondary or tertiary care with these services being distinct but integrated.
Woman Centred Continuity of Care Maternity Models
Summary
Aim
Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of maternity services and aligning services to consumer expectations.
Benefits
- Consumer engagement in review and co-design of services and models of care ensuring services are woman and family centred.
- Workforce engagement in review and co-design sustaining and strengthening interdisciplinary professional contribution.
- Interrogates of each step of the patient journey in order to optimise services and create an environment of continuous improvement, engagement and sustainability.
- Ensures services are evidence based, audited and benchmarked.
Background
There is an imperative to reconfigure the delivery of maternity care services at Gold Coast Health (GCH) in order to ensure the key goals of quality, effectiveness, efficiency and improved client experience are met along with the increasing demands for service associated with population growth and increasing complexity.
Evaluation and Results
Despite the evidence demonstrating the benefits of Continuity of Care models for families, health professionals and health care organisations scaling-up Continuity of Care maternity models has proven elusive in the Australian context.
Gold Coast Health is leading the way and as such will be well positioned to continue to provide high quality evidence based maternity care into the future for the Gold Coast community, and to assist other maternity services to develop and grow.