TeamBirth Launches at Cape Cod Hospital

A new initiative ensures maternity patients and the clinical team caring for them at The Family Birthplace have shared input during labor and delivery.

Collaborative decision-making, clear communication and a dignified care experience during labor and delivery.

It’s all part of the new TeamBirth initiative at The Family Birthplace at Cape Cod Hospital. 

“The TeamBirth model of care supports our goal of working together to offer comprehensive, patient-centered care to expectant mothers and their families,” says Jennifer Lacasse, Service Line Director for Women’s Health at Cape Cod Hospital’s Birthing Center. “Shared decision-making is particularly important because it involves some of the most important and personal aspects of a patient’s life, such as pain management, delivery mode and interventions during childbirth,” says Lacasse.

At a special launch event this week at the hospital, The Family Birthplace team celebrated the program by wearing turquoise T-shirts designed by labor and delivery nurse Alex Curtiss. The brightly colored shirts display a baby on the front surrounded by a heart. The back features an expectant mother, the title “TeamBirth” and underneath, “Supporting Safe Birth: Every patient, everywhere, every time.”

The Family Birthplace staff celebrates TeamBirth.

Cape Cod Hospital was chosen to participate in this program, along with nine other Massachusetts hospitals. The state perinatal collaborative of Massachusetts will be featuring this project as the gold model of labor and delivery care.

TeamBirth ensures maternity patients and the clinical team caring for them at The Family Birthplace including OB/GYNs, midwives, lactation consultants, nurses and pediatricians – have shared input and understanding into decisions during labor and delivery. Studies indicate that this collaboration has a positive impact on patient safety and outcomes, helping to reduce the number of Cesarean sections, which often pose risks for newborns and mothers.

The TeamBirth initiative was created by Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and is supported by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. The program encourages communication and teamwork during huddles and is structured through a simple, shared whiteboard in the labor room aiming to:

• Promote the roles of the laboring patient, nurse, and delivering provider as members of the care team with equally valuable input for decision-making
• Elicit the patient’s preferences, symptoms, and subjective experiences and integrate with clinical data to inform patient care plans
• Distinguish maternal, fetal, and labor progress statuses and care plans
• Set shared expectations for the next planned evaluation

“Emphasizing shared decision-making in labor and delivery can improve patient outcomes, increase patient satisfaction and promote equity in care,” says Lacasse. “Our team strives to involve patients in all aspects of their care and works to address any barriers that may prevent patients from participating fully in the decision-making process.”