The Leapfrog Group has reported a drop in the rate of maternal early elective deliveries nationally.

In 2010, the Leapfrog Group began asking hospitals to report early elective deliveries. Regarded as the gold standard in evaluating hospital performance, the Leapfrog Hospital Survey measures and publicly reports on national standards of safety, quality and efficiency. About 750 hospitals, accounting for about half the births in the United States, complied. According to Lisa Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog, the rates they found shocked a lot of people. Even hospitals didn’t know how high their rates were.

While the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has warned against early elective deliveries — inductions or cesarean (C-section) procedures performed prior to 39 completed weeks gestation without medical necessity — for more than 30 years, the 2010 Leapfrog results showed these deliveries accounted for 17 percent of neonatal births.

In 2013, the government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began requiring hospitals to report dada on elective deliveries. By measuring and publicizing rates of early elective delivery, purchasers and providers have been able to see the financial and health implications of their procedure choices. In the case of early deliveries, clinical trials have shown that infant mortality is at least 50 percent higher for babies delivered at weeks 37 or 38 weeks, versus being delivered at 39 or 40 weeks. These babies are also more likely to suffer breathing, feeding and developmental problems.

Besides health risks, elective C-sections also cost a lot more than traditional child birth. And due to an increased risk of complications, fewer early deliveries also means fewer babies in the neonatal intensive care unit – one of the most expensive rooms in the hospital.

Last year the national average was down to 4.6 percent, a drop of 73 percent in three years. Colorado was one of the nation’s leaders, with a rate of 3 percent (see chart for a year-by-year comparison). “In health care, we talk about a 1 to 2 percent change as spectacular — wow, we’ve really improved,” said Leah Binder, the president and chief executive of The Leapfrog Group. “I have never in my career seen anything like the progress we’re seeing on early elective deliveries.”

Measuring and publicizing rates of early elective delivery has revealed the dimensions of the problem. It tells the hospitals how they are doing, allows patients to choose safer hospitals, creates competition for hospitals to increase their safety standards, and creates the basis for payment reform around delivery procedures.

The Colorado Business Group on Health is proud to be part of the solution as the Colorado Leapfrog Regional Rollout. The mission of the Leapfrog Group is to activate leaps forward in the safety, quality and affordability of health care by making the American public aware of a small number of compelling and easily understood advances in patient safety. Their mission is to do so by specifying a simple set of purchasing principles designed to promote these safety advances, as well as overall customer value.