Establishing an alternative accommodation for stable hospitalised antepartum patients: barriers and challenges

Abstract

Background: Patients in remote communities who risk premature delivery require transfer to a tertiary care centre for obstetric and neonatal care. Following stabilisation, many patients are candidates for outpatient management but cannot be discharged to their home communities due to lack of neonatal intensive care unit (ICU) support.

Problem: Without outpatient accommodation proximal to neonatal ICU, these patients face prolonged hospitalisation-an expensive option with medical, social and psychological consequences. Therefore, we sought to establish an alternative accommodation for out-of-town stable antepartum patients.

Methods: Quality Improvement approaches were used to identify process strengths and opportunities for improvement on the antepartum ward in a tertiary care centre. Physician and patient surveys informed outpatient accommodation programme development by a multidisciplinary team. The intervention was implemented using a plan-do-study-act cycle. Barriers to patient discharge and enrolment in the programme were analysed by completing thematic and strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats (SWOT) analysis.

Results: Physicians broadly supported safe outpatient management, whereas patients were hesitant to leave the hospital even when physicians assured safety. Our alternative accommodation was pre-existing and cost-effective, however, we encountered significant barriers. The physical space limited family visits and social interaction, lacked desired amenities,and the programme proved inconvenient to patients. The thematic and SWOT analysis identified aspects of the intervention which can be optimised to develop future actionable strategies.

Conclusion: The utilisation of acute care beds is costly for the healthcare system and must be allocated judiciously. Patient needs, experience and health system barriers need to be considered when establishing alternative outpatient accommodations and strategies for stable antepartum patients.

Keywords: length of stay; maternal health services; patient satisfaction; quality improvement.