Maternal Centric Measurement and Data Gaps in Addressing Maternal Morbidities: A Scoping Review

The objectives of this project were to (1) describe maternal-centric measures and survey data which are publicly available to evaluate the incidence, frequency, and distribution of maternal morbidity in the postpartum period, and (2) to identify postpartum care quality improvement targets and outline the types of measurement and data required to support them.

We conducted a scoping review of two types of data sources: maternal health quality measures used by providers and payers and nationally-representative survey data sets administered by federal agencies. Each source was searched for keywords associated with pregnancy and the postpartum period. We included quality measures and survey questions that are maternal-centric and addressed the postpartum period. We excluded infant-centric measures and data. Quality measures were organized according to the Donabedian quality model.

Our analysis demonstrates that existing maternal-centric quality measures and survey data offer limited insight into diagnosis and patient care delivery experiences associated with maternal morbidities during the postpartum period.

There is inadequate maternal-centric data on the incidence, frequency, and distribution of postpartum maternal morbidities and associated care use. This gap reduces the ability of research to estimate the incidence of illness and injury among postpartum women and create targeted quality improvement efforts. Our findings highlight the need for quality measure stewards and data sponsors to enhance data collection and methods to become more inclusive of maternal-centric outcomes during the postpartum period.