Enhancing Birth Communication: Inside Norman Regional's TeamBirth Initiative

Norman Regional celebrated the launch of TeamBirth on their Women and Children’s floor Tuesday afternoon.

What is TeamBirth?

TeamBirth is an industry-standard process to improve communication, teamwork, and shared decision-making throughout the birthing process, giving every person a chance at a safe, dignified childbirth experience.

TeamBirth supports open communication among patients, their support team and clinicians during birth and beyond. Through structured huddles and a shared planning board, TeamBirth empowers everyone to reach decisions together.

From the time a patient is admitted for labor and delivery, until they are discharged after birth, they will join their care team in shared huddles. Together, the team will discuss progress, make changes to care plans and schedule the next check-in. Every person on the team has an opportunity to share their experiences.

According to TeamBirth, failures in communication and teamwork among clinical teams play a role in 80 – 90 percent of cases of patient harm.

During each huddle, the team will take notes on a Shared Planning Tool displayed on the wall. The board names all members of the team and provides a visual reminder of care plans and preferences for the all patients admitted to Women’s and Children’s which include mothers and the baby’s, antepartum and pediatric patients.

Barbara O’Brien, MS, RN, Director of Oklahoma Perinatal Quality Improvement Collaborative (OPQIC) attended Tuesday’s event to share the impact of the program on patients.

“What they are trying to do is solve complex issues in healthcare. We know we want to provide patient-centered care and bring in the patients, but how do we do that? This is how we can elevate the voices of the patient.”

The Patient Perspective

Sarah Thompson, Patient Partner with OPQIC, talked about how her own pregnancy led her to advocating for future mothers. “In 2016, I had my daughter and I experienced a lot of complications that were confusing to me. No one really explained things to me as they were happening and I left my birth experience having no real understanding of what happened to me and why.”

Thompson continued, “Because if a TeamBirth huddle was happening for me, I would know that my nurses were talking to my doctor because I would be in those conversations too. It’s about letting the patient in on the communication so that they like and trust you and they feel supported.”

Norman Regional is once again a leader in adopting new ways to streamline services and improve our patient-centered care. TeamBirth was previously launched on our Labor and Delivery floor with real-time surveys conducted by OPQIC showing positive results among birthing mothers. Women and Children’s was the next logical step to adopt the communication tool, but its continued success could result in additional departments throughout the health system utilizing this useful tool.