Inspired by their research science training and personal birthing experiences, Dr. Holzer and Dr. Londhe sought to scientifically document the inadequacies in health care data and measures of quality for maternal health in the United States. Their investigation culminated in the paper “Maternal Centric Measurement and Data Gaps in Addressing Maternal Morbidities: A Scoping Review” which was published in the December issue of Maternal and Child Health. The paper captures how there are inadequate maternal-centric data on the incidence, frequency, and distribution of postpartum maternal morbidities and associated care use. This gap reduces the ability of research to estimate the incidence of illness and injury among postpartum women and create targeted quality improvement efforts. These findings highlight the need for quality measure stewards and data sponsors to enhance data collection and methods to become more inclusive of maternal-centric outcomes during the postpartum period.
Read the abstract or contact the research team for a full-text copy.
