Home About Samaritan Our Organization Sustainable Health Care Exploring Services: Women & Children
There is a national shortage of OB/GYN physicians. This makes recruitment and retention of physicians challenging. Samaritan currently has five openings for OB/GYN physicians. Some of the openings have been posted for longer than 12 months. Because of this, Samaritan must contract with temporary physicians and Labor & Delivery nurses to provide the necessary coverage. Temporary coverage and staffing are very expensive.
Samaritan is exploring ways to:
Consolidation of Labor & Delivery services would optimize use of hospital inpatient facilities. It would reduce the need to staff underutilized facilities 24/7 and our physicians would not need to be on call so often. Proposed enhancements would improve access to outpatient OB/GYN services, increase teamwork among clinicians and staff and make Samaritan’s Women & Children’s program more resilient.
Samaritan clinicians, leaders and analysts are exploring all aspects of the Women & Children’s clinical program, including:
In total, there were 856 hospital days, when mandatory staffing was required despite no deliveries. This resulted in an estimated cost of $10 million. Hospitals are not reimbursed for these costs. The direct loss on obstetric services totaled $7.8 million, accounting for all deliveries at Samaritan hospitals.
All Samaritan birth centers meet quality standards for maternal morbidity/mortality and obstetric services. Consolidating deliveries at three hospitals is projected to maintain or enhance these outcomes. Consolidation would allow greater consistency, concentrated expertise and decreased dependence on temporary staff.
This approach will not create maternity care deserts—U.S. counties lacking maternity resources— because outpatient and prenatal services would remain at all current locations.