Cost of maternity care to public hospitals: a first 1000-days perspective from Queensland.

ConclusionsThere was considerable variation in costs between hospital and health services in Queensland for the costs of delivering maternity care. Cost needs to be considered as an important additional element of monitoring programs.What is known about the topic?The Australian maternal care system delivers high-quality, safe care to Australian mothers. However, this comes at a considerable financial cost to the Australian public health system. It is known that there are variations in the cost of care depending upon the model of care a woman receives, and the type of delivery she has, with higher-cost treatment not necessarily being safer or producing better outcomes.What does this paper add?This paper compares the cost of delivering a full cycle of maternity care to a woman at different HHSs across Queensland. It demonstrates that there is considerable variation in cost across HHSs, even after adjusting for clinical and demographic factors.What are the implications for practitioners?Reporting of cost should be an ongoing part of performance monitoring in public hospital maternity care alongside clinical outcomes to ensure the sustainability of the high-quality maternal health care Australian public hospitals deliver. PMID: 31303194 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Australian Health Review - Category: Hospital Management Authors: Tags: Aust Health Rev Source Type: research