Background: Improving communication in healthcare improves the quality of care and patient outcomes, but communication between obstetric and neonatal teams before and during a high-risk delivery is poorly studied.
Study design: We developed a survey to study communication between obstetric and neonatal teams around the time of a high-risk delivery. We surveyed neonatologists from North America and asked them to answer questions about their institutions' communication practices.
Results: The survey answers revealed variations in communication practices between responders. Most institutions relied on nursing to communicate obstetric information to the neonatal team. Although a minority of institutions used a standardized communication process to summon neonatology team or to communicate in the delivery room, these reported higher rates of information sharing and greater satisfaction with communication between services.
Conclusion: Standardized communication procedures are an underutilized method of communication and have the potential to improve communication around high-risk deliveries.
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