The Maternal Child Health Section: Quality Improvement Plan

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According to Pillitteri (2009), the Maternal Child Health section refers to the section or department in a hospital that deals with treatment, prevention, and control of diseases. These diseases affect the health of women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. The services offered in this section range from family planning, preconception, prenatal to postnatal care. These services are usually offered to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity. For this paper, pregnancy period, childbirth, and postnatal care will be given attention (Hodnett, 2003).

Childbirth refers to the process of expelling a newborn infant from the woman’s uteruses. Research shows that induced labor and cesarean have adverse health effects on the fetus and neonate women. Women die in developing countries every minute from pregnancy-related complications at childbirth. The World Health Organization considers poor maternal conditions during delivery as the main contributing factor to the high maternal mortality rate (Hodnett, 2003).

In addition, poor health provision services during childbirth are another main cause of high maternal mortality. This is ranked fourth after HIV/AIDS, malaria, and Tuberculosis. The majority of these deaths arise from biological processes, which could be prevented if quality services are offered at the maternal section both during birth and post-delivery period. Quality of care does provide expectant women with adequate and correct medical care during the post-delivery period.

It should provide women with all the available medical procedures and options for them to choose and elaborate on the benefits. It facilitates adherence to each of the procedures and assists the expectant women make the best decision that is beneficial to them and the unborn. Maternity care should be safe, effective, and timely. Performance is highly essential in the delivery process (Pillitteri, 2009).

The data collection tools that can be used in gathering performance data are in-depth interviews with the care provider and the patient, an observation checklist, and focused group discussions. The in-depth interview is a qualitative data collection method that usually takes the form of a confidential and secure conversation between the interviewer and the respondent (Pillitteri, 2009). The interviewer usually has a pre-structured series of questions to help in the interview process.

This ensures that no significant information is left unanswered, and assists at the analysis stage in report writing. This method is critical since it gives an insight into the individual evaluation of the issue at hand that is being focused on. Therefore, during the process of in-depth interviews, the interviewer could interrogate the health care provider or the patient to get more information.

The interview always takes place in a private place to ensure that the respondent is in a comfortable situation that he is ready to listen and reply to the interviewer questions adequately. The interview usually varies and may take an hour or two where it is recorded on a tape or video for analysis purposes as well as report writing. The recordings are normally deleted after more than 6 months period from the interview date.

The advantage of this method of data collection tool is that it creates room for a better understanding of the concerned situation and gains more knowledge. It also makes it faster and easier to recruit the respondents since they are usually picked from the known angle such as a doctor, nurse, or patient (Pillitteri, 2009). In this case, there is a better rapport between the interview and the respondent since the interview takes place in a private place, and the respondent will be free in responding to questions. It is also faster and cheaper since the cost of recruiting ma people as respondents associated with other methods of data collection is reduced. This method makes the results susceptible to interviewer interpretation and the data are in soft copy and difficult to analyze or interpret.

As observed by White (2012), Focused Group Discussion (FGD) is a data collection method whereby a group of respondents with a given characteristic of interest such as expectant women, doctors, or nurses is grouped. They are allowed to discuss a topic that the survey is to cover such as the quality of care in maternity. The participants are guided through discussion with a moderator whose role is always to introduce the topic of interest for the discussion and ensure that the group does participate livelily and naturally.

The participants are allowed to agree or to disagree with one another since from that angle it is when insight into the problem is determined. The note taker who normally records the non-verbal responses and verbal responses assists the modulator (Pillitteri, 2010). The tape recording is always used to record the discussions and used at the end of the interview together with the notes taken to prepare a comprehensive report.

The data collected with this method is qualitative. The data collection tool does provide useful information about the respondent’s attitudes. Since they are small, they do ensure involvement for idea testing and gaining opinions (Pillitteri, 2010). The method is beneficial because it can be resource-intensive through paying the facilitator and some respondents, and even the cost of the interview venue. It is also widely criticized because the data collected are only for a small population and not representative of the entire population.

An observation checklist used as a data collection tool involves observing the events in a predetermined set-up and recording the data in a sheet. Observation refers to collecting data by watching activities as they occur in their natural environment without intervening. The observation can take the form of overt observation or covert where the observation is concealed. An observed event is then recorded in an observation checklist.

This data collection method is truly appropriate since it checks compliance with set standards or guidelines that govern a procedure or event (White, 2012). Notably, the method is disadvantageous because it is susceptible to observer bias. People will tend to perform well when being observed. Wrong data collected do not give an insight into people’s behavior. This method collects data when the event takes place and does not rely on the willingness of the people to provide information.

The focused group discussion and in-depth interview collect qualitative data. Both tools involve interviewing the respondents through discussion. However, they differ in the sense that focused group discussion involves interviewing many respondents whiles the in-depth interview deals with only one respondent at a time. The tools are highly significant for an interview in the maternity health unit section. This is because issues that affect the women are the same and an in-depth interview or focused group discussion would reveal in detail the health impacts for quality improvement.

References

Hodnett, D. (2003). Pain and women’s satisfaction with the experience of childbirth: A systematic review. American journal of obstetrics and gynecology. Web.

Pillitteri, A. (2009). Maternal and Child Health Nursing: Care of the Childbearing and Childrearing Family. Hagerstown, MD: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Pillitteri, A. (2010). Maternal and Child Health Nursing. New York NY: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

White, J. (2012). Global Case Studies in Maternal and Child Health. London UK: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

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The Maternal Child Health Section: Quality Improvement Plan

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