Case Studies

Between 2012 and 2014, cases of congenital syphilis tripled in California. The staff at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital in Bakersfield, CA, found that most women who gave birth to babies with congenital syphilis had no private physician and received very little or no prenatal care. Bakersfield’s understaffed labor and delivery triage unit was often the first and only caregiver these women had seen.

Bakersfield Memorial worked with Ob Hospitalist Group to establish 24/7 labor and delivery triage coverage to ensure that a board-certified OB/GYN was present to evaluate every at-risk pregnant woman and test her for syphilis.

After Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue, WA, partnered with Ob Hospitalist Group to establish an OB emergency department, the hospital saw a reduction in unattended deliveries and C-sections and the complete elimination of early elective deliveries. At the same time, local physicians described “a total integration” of care with the coordinated services and support of OBHG hospitalists.

Sacred Heart Hospital of Pensacola previously contracted with private OB/GYNs for labor and delivery call coverage, which proved to be an expensive and insufficient model. Sacred Heart partnered with Ob Hospitalist Group to provide an onsite OB emergency department. They also took advantage of the hospitalists’ 24-hour presence to serve as additional residency faculty.

Good Samaritan Hospital, in Suffern, NY, was looking to improve patient safety in their labor and delivery unit, support their midwifery practice and alleviate the on-call burden for community obstetricians. The facility partnered with Ob Hospitalist Group to launch a new hospitalist program in 2017, and local midwifery and OB/GYN practices have been thriving ever since.

"We would never want to go back to not having a hospitalist program. We don’t have the infrastructure administratively to do this on our own,” said Dr. Patricia Pollio, director of OB/GYN at Good Samaritan.