[How to use health information systems to improve the quality of obstetric care.]

Monitoring and evaluating health outcomes through vital statistics is rapidly expanding also thanks to the improvement of linkage procedures that provide the opportunity to deepen aspects of knowledge otherwise unavailable. The main problem highlighted in obstetric research concerns the unavailability of robust indicators able to describe, univocally at international level, the conditions of maternal morbidity. The editorial proposes a reflection on the urgency of combining the availability of health information systems with appropriate and unambiguous definitions of maternal morbidity conditions in order to facilitate public health research able to promote the quality of clinical practice.