AHRQ's Quality & Patient Safety Programs by Setting: Hospital Labor and Delivery Units

AHRQ Safety Program for Perinatal Care – I aims to improve the patient safety culture of labor and delivery (L&D) units and decrease maternal and neonatal adverse events resulting from poor communication and system failures. The Safety Program for Perinatal Care is organized around three program pillars: Teamwork and Communication skills, Perinatal Safety Strategies, and In Situ Simulation training. This toolkit was developed to support implementation of the three program pillars.

AHRQ Safety Program for Perinatal Care – II. Following the release of AHRQ's Toolkit for Improving Perinatal Safety, a second bundle of AHRQ tools is available to improve the safety culture of labor and delivery (L&D) units. The second bundle provides resources that align the toolkit’s adaptive care processes with the clinical care processes recommended in the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) program. The new tools are designed to help L&D units reduce obstetric hemorrhage and severe hypertension in pregnancy, two leading known causes of preventable maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity in the United States.