Birth volume and the quality of obstetric care in rural hospitals

Background: Childbirth is the most common reason for hospitalization in the United States. Assessing obstetric care quality is critically important for patients, clinicians, and hospitals in rural areas.

Methods: The study used hospital discharge data from the Statewide Inpatient Databases, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, for 9 states (Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin) to identify all births in rural hospitals with 10 or more births/year in 2002 (N = 94,356) and 2010 (N = 103,880). Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between hospital annual birth volume, measured as low (10-110), medium (111-240), medium-high (241-460) or high (>460), and 3 measures of obstetric care quality (low-risk cesarean rates for term, vertex, and singleton pregnancies with no prior cesarean; nonindicated cesarean; and nonindicated induction) and 2 patient safety measures (episiotomy and perineal laceration).

Results: The odds of low-risk and nonindicated cesarean were lower in medium-high and high-volume rural hospitals compared with low-volume hospitals after controlling for maternal demographic and clinical factors. In low-volume hospitals, odds of labor induction without medical indication were higher than in medium-volume hospitals, but not significantly different from medium-high or high-volume hospitals. Odds of episiotomy were greater in medium-high or high-volume hospitals than in low-volume hospitals. The likelihood of perineal laceration did not differ significantly by birth volume.

Conclusions: Obstetric quality and safety outcomes vary significantly across rural hospitals by birth volume. Better performance is not consistently associated with either lower or higher volume facilities.