BCH named among Leapfrog, Money’s list of Best Maternity Hospitals

Money Magazine teamed up with The Leapfrog Group, a health care nonprofit, to develop its first-ever Best Hospitals for Maternity Care ranking. This ranking helps expecting parents make educated decisions about which hospitals consistently deliver the safest, highest-value care for patients and excellence in maternity experiences.

Money and The Leapfrog Group selected 259 hospitals out of more than 2,200 hospitals around the country to receive the Best Hospitals for Maternity Care recognition. Our Family Birth Center at Foothills Hospital is among the elite 259 hospitals to receive this honor.

To compile this elite list of top hospitals, the Leapfrog Group used maternity care data voluntarily submitted via the 2022 Leapfrog Hospital Survey, which participants were required to submit by August 31, 2022. To qualify for the best maternity hospitals list, hospitals were required to carry an A or B letter grade on the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade assessment for spring 2022. Hospitals were also required to meet these criteria specific in providing maternity care:

• Early Elective Deliveries: A hospital must achieve Leapfrog’s standard for Early Elective Deliveries, requiring a rate of 5% or less.
• Cesarean Birth: To meet Leapfrog’s standard, hospitals must achieve the Healthy People 2030 nulliparous term singleton vertex (NTSV) cesarean section delivery rate of 23.6% or less.
• Episiotomy: A hospital must achieve Leapfrog’s standard episiotomy rate of 5% or less.
• DVT Prophylaxis: A hospital must achieve Leapfrog’s standard of being 90% or more compliant with pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic measures to diminish the risk of deep venous thrombosis (DVT) among women undergoing cesarean delivery.
• Bilirubin Screening: A hospital must achieve Leapfrog’s standard for being 90% or more compliant with screening for bilirubin among all infants.
• High-Risk Deliveries: To achieve Leapfrog’s standard, hospitals electively admitting high-risk deliveries need to care for at least 50 or more very-low birth weight babies per year (defined as less than 1500 grams) or have “better than expected” performance on the Vermont’s Oxford Network’s measure of death or morbidity.

For more information, visit https://money.com/methodology-best-hospitals-for-maternity-care/