The Status of Prenatal Care among Medicaid Managed Care Patients in Connecticut

Providing quality prenatal care to high-risk, pregnant adolescents represents an important challenge to health care providers and health plans. Using national prenatal care guidelines, this study sought to evaluate the quality of important processes and outcomes of prenatal care delivered to women a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evaluation & the health professions 2000-12, Vol.23 (4), p.409-421
Main Authors: van Hoof, Thomas J., Casey, Barbara A., Tate, Janet P., Linnane, James J., Petrillo, Marcia K., Meehan, Thomas P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adolescents
Adult
Antenatal care
Cesarean Section - utilization
Connecticut
Female
Health care
Health technology assessment
Humans
Length of Stay - statistics & numerical data
Managed care
Managed Care Programs - standards
Managed health care
Medicaid
Medicaid - standards
Outcome and Process Assessment (Health Care)
Patients
Pregnancy
Pregnancy in Adolescence
Pregnant adolescent girls
Prenatal Care
Prenatal Care - standards
Prenatal Care - utilization
Prenatal development
Program Evaluation
Quality Indicators, Health Care
United States
USA
Women
Young Children
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Providing quality prenatal care to high-risk, pregnant adolescents represents an important challenge to health care providers and health plans. Using national prenatal care guidelines, this study sought to evaluate the quality of important processes and outcomes of prenatal care delivered to women age 21 years and younger enrolled in three health plans serving the Connecticut Medicaid population. Some important findings include 93% compliance with recommended processes of prenatal care, an 11% C-section rate, an average length of hospital stay of 4.0 days for women having a C-section, and a 10% premature delivery rate. Opportunities for improvement include 40% failing to begin prenatal care in the first trimester, 31% not receiving the recommended number of prenatal care visits, and 8% delivering a low-birth-weight infant. This study provides important descriptive information on processes and outcomes of care for pregnant adolescents within Medicaid Managed Care and also identifies opportunities for improvement.
ISSN:0163-2787
1552-3918
DOI:10.1177/01632780022034697