SMFM Patient Safety and Quality Resources

The SMFM Patient Safety & Quality Committee is charged with developing materials to assist maternal-fetal medicine subspecialists in providing leadership in quality & safety initiatives at hospital and organizational levels. Below are checklists, quality metrics, and additional resources developed by the committee.

Checklists

The regular use of checklists—standardized, validated, evidence- or consensus-based processes—promotes consistency in obstetrical care and contributes to provide safe, efficient, high-quality patient care. The SMFM Patient Safety & Quality Committee encourages our members to incorporate the checklists below into their clinical practice to help improve the safety dynamics of their hospital. The information in the SMFM Patient Safety Checklists should not be construed as dictation of an exclusive course of treatment or procedures to be ordered. Although the components of a particular checklist may be adapted to local resources, standardization of checklists within an institution is strongly encouraged.

• Amniotic Fluid Embolism, Initial Management (January 2021)
  
• Amniocentesis or Chorionic Villous Sampling (July 2018)
• Cesarean Delivery, Surgical Safety Checklists (July 2021)
• Diabetes Mellitus, Pregestational, Antepartum Care (November 2020)
• HIV, Pregnancy Management (November 2020)
• Hypertensive Disorders, Postpartum Discharge (October 2020)
• Maternal Transport Briefing Form and Checklist (November 2020)
• Operative Vaginal Delivery (May 2020)
• Placenta Accreta Spectrum, Unexpected (September 2018)
• Placenta Accreta Spectrum, Suspected, Planning Form (September 2018)
• Preeclampsia, Low-Dose Aspirin, Risk-Factor Screening (September 2020)
• Thromboembolism Prophylaxis, Post-Cesarean (October 2020)
• Twin Pregnancy, Monochorionic (November 2020)

Quality Metrics

• SMFM Special Statement: A Quality Metric for Evaluating Timely Treatment of Severe Hypertension (October 2021)
• SMFM Special Statement: Proposed Quality Metrics to Assess Accuracy of Prenatal Detection of Congenital Heart Defects (February 2020)

Additional Resources

• Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Special Statement: Cognitive bias and medical error in obstetrics - Challenges and opportunities (April 2022)
• Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Special Statement: A Critique of Postpartum Readmission Rate as a Quality Metric (November 2021)
• SMFM Patient Safety Guideline: Reducing the Risk of Transmitting Infection by Transvaginal Ultrasound Examination (September 2020)
• SMFM Special Statement: Who’s Who in Patient Safety and Quality for Maternal Health Care in the United States (July 2020)
• SMFM Special Report: The Development and Implementation of Checklists in Obstetrics (May 2017)
  
• SMFM Special Report: Current Approaches to Measuring Quality of Care in Obstetrics (July 2016)
• Obstetric Safety and Quality (July 2015)