| dc.description.abstract | Prenatal care has been associated with improved pregnancy outcomes for both a mother and her unborn child. However, there are still many disparities that exist in healthcare today, resulting in inadequate access to prenatal care for many groups of women. Women face many barriers to prenatal care that can lead to poor maternal and neonatal outcomes such as lack of transportation, scheduling difficulties, inability to pay for services, and other social factors (Abshire et al. 2019; Akamune, 2018; Crocket et al., 2019). Since the early 1900’s, the focus has been on individualized care models, but the benefits of group prenatal care (GPC) have become a pertinent topic of discussion. Both the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have discussed the potential benefits of GPC including improvements in the quality of care, as well as enhanced maternal and neonatal outcomes among diverse populations of women.
The focus of this practice improvement project (PIP) was to increase obstetrics providers' knowledge of barriers to prenatal care and educate on the importance of GPC, more specifically the CP® model of care. To better improve prenatal care of women in a central North Dakota OBGYN clinic, obstetrics providers were invited to watch a 25-minute evidence-based PowerPoint presentation with key topics including barriers to prenatal care, ways to reduce barriers to prenatal care, and the benefits of GPC in clinical practice. Providers completed pre- and post-surveys to assess their change in perceived knowledge following the educational module. Four providers responded to the pre-survey and two responded to the post-survey.
Results of the project indicated an overall increase in providers’ perceived knowledge regarding barriers to prenatal care, ways to reduce barriers to prenatal care, and benefits of GPC and CP®. In addition, provider intent to implement GPC services into their practice also assessed increased following review of the educational module. Key barriers to implementation of GPC identified by the participants included lack of facility support, staffing, space, and scheduling. The educational module was beneficial in promoting the use of evidence-based research to increase providers’ knowledge of ways to reduce barriers to care through the utilization of GPC. | en_US |
