Healthy Babies, Healthy Moms

In 2011, the Midwest Business Group on Health (MBGH) received a grant from the National Business Coalition on Health and the United Health Foundation to conduct a series of summits and develop recommendations to reduce the number of early elective deliveries performed before the 39th week of gestation for non-medical reasons.

MBGH brought together hospitals, physicians, consumers, government, the March of Dimes and Quality Quest for Health, an Illinois Regional Health Improvement Organization, to explore what currently is being done to address this problem and what new activities are needed to bring the various interested parties together to effectively use their combined resources in a common effort.

MBGH found that by informing hospitals of their status compared to their peers and sharing best practices developed by the March of Dimes and ACOG, over 70% of Illinois hospitals improved their early elective delivery rate within 12 months.  

Click here for more information on the Preventing Elective Early Deliveries Initiative

Following the end of the Preventing Elective Early Deliveries grant in 2012, MBGH and Quality Quest continued this effort by creating a statewide collaborative effort called “Healthy Babies, Healthy Moms (HBHM).” This initiative is focused on the following five major areas identified during the grant as needing attention to reduce unnecessary elective deliveries:

Measurement and Public Reporting
Determine data and performance measures to be used
Establish efficient data collection process
Develop and pilot hospital and clinician reports
Publicly report results
Statewide hospital report cards

Hospital Elective Delivery Policies
Adopt common language and focus
Agree on best practice policies and practice standards
Develop elective delivery policy evaluation criteria and scoring system
Implement best practice policies and standards at each hospital with maternity service

Payment Reform
Identify what health plans are doing to address early elective deliveries
Develop maternity payment reform recommendations
Pilot maternity payment reform ideas
Establish criteria for evaluating payment reform pilots

Malpractice Relief
Develop malpractice relief recommendations for liability insurers and state legislation
Promote liability relief for clinicians and hospitals following best practice

Consumer Education
Create public awareness campaign
Offer online organizational endorsement of the project
Create an online mothers forum
Provide resources for peer-to-peer education
Develop worksite programs and materials for employers to use t    o promote full-term births


Members who want information on the importance of full term births for their maternity management or worksite wellness programs or who are interested in serving on one of the committees should contact Larry Boress at lboress@mbgh.org