Exeter Hospital Implements Patient-Centered TeamBirth Maternity Program
First-in-the-State Program Emphasizes Highest Quality of Care, Communication in Childbirth Experience
Exeter, NH (November 22, 2024) – Exeter Hospital, part of Beth Israel Lahey Health, is the first hospital in New Hampshire to implement the TeamBirth maternity care program in keeping with its commitment to providing extraordinary childbirth services to the region.
TeamBirth is an evidence-based practice that empowers patients and their support teams in the decision-making during the birth experience. It emphasizes quality of care and safety by elevating the patient voice, ensuring people giving birth, together with their support team, have shared input into the birthing plan and understanding of the expectations for delivery of care alongside their clinicians and care providers. The process utilizes team huddles at key decision points during the hospital stay and a shared planning tool to further enhance communication and teamwork during labor, delivery and postpartum care.
“We are proud to launch the TeamBirth program to further our commitment to giving patients the highest quality birth experience possible,” said Deb Cresta, president of Exeter Hospital. “Excellent communication is essential to providing compassionate care, and TeamBirth will help ensure every person in the birth experience, from the patients to the partners and support people to the clinicians and caregivers, feels empowered and respected.”
Exeter Hospital joins more than 130 hospitals in the U.S. and Sweden in successfully implementing the TeamBirth program. Patients experiencing TeamBirth have been found to have better perception of hospital care, more trust in providers and higher satisfaction in care quality.
“The TeamBirth program helps foster trust between patients and their care team, which is fundamental to ensuring a safe and dignified birth for all,” said April Henry, MSN, RNC-OB, director of The Family Center at Exeter Hospital. “We are proud to be the first hospital in New Hampshire to implement TeamBirth, and we look forward to embarking on this journey alongside our patients and their families.”
TeamBirth was developed by Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. It was designed based on best practices in communication, teamwork and clinical care in collaboration with experts from the major professional organizations in obstetrics in the United States, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM), the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) and the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetrics and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN).
In a clinical trial, the TeamBirth care process was tested at four U.S. hospitals, involving hundreds of clinicians and tens of thousands of families. In the trial, 79 percent of patients felt their preferences made a difference in the care they received, 87 percent felt they had the role they wanted in the decision-making process related to their labor, and 94 percent reported their clinical team spoke to them in a way they could understand.
About Exeter Hospital
For more than 125 years, Exeter Hospital has been integral to the health and wellness of communities in the Seacoast Region. The hospital opened in 1897 as a small cottage hospital on Pine Street in Exeter with accommodations for 10 patients. Since then, Exeter Hospital has grown into a 100-bed community-based acute care hospital that also provides extensive outpatient services.
Exeter Hospital is part of Beth Israel Lahey Health, a health care system that brings together academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, community and specialty hospitals, more than 4,700 physicians and 39,000 employees in a shared mission to expand access to great care and advance the science and practice of medicine through groundbreaking research and education.
Media Contact
Sonya Vartabedian
Email