Safe Delivery
Each year, CHS affiliated hospitals help welcome 54,000 babies into the world. Most of these deliveries are safe, successful, joyful events. But, childbirth is not without risk, and because many birth injuries and deaths are preventable, all hospitals are focused on keeping women in labor and their babies safe.
To increase safety even more for these special patients, CHS has invested in PeriGen’s PeriWatch Vigilance, an automated early warning system designed to support clinical care and decision making. The technology continuously monitors maternal vital signs, fetal heart rate, uterine contractions and labor progression to help identify potential issues and abnormalities for faster intervention. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, the system can also track, consolidate and analyze maternal and fetal data for multiple births over time to identify modifiable factors and opportunities for continuous safety and quality improvement.
Maternity teams at CHS hospitals have reported the technology provides an extra layer of close monitoring, which can be especially helpful during periods of high census or during more complex deliveries. With one consolidated view of fetal status, maternal vital signs and labor progression, providers are able to focus more on care management decisions rather than searching for information.
Earlier this year, PeriGen and CHS presented early results at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Patient Safety Congress. Data included 1,888 tracings from women with a recorded gestational age of 36 weeks or more between October 2021 and February 2022. The data showed:
“The physicians and nurses who work in our hospital OB programs are skilled, compassionate people who are committed to safety and achieving the best outcomes for their patients,” said Nicole Herndon, Senior Director of Women and Children Service Lines at Community Health Systems. “They have embraced this technology and recognize the important role it can play in supporting care delivery.”
PeriWatch Vigilance currently is in place at 54 of 56 CHS hospitals providing obstetric services and will be installed at all CHS hospitals with OB programs by the end of the year.