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Asmau Misawa MD

  • Graduate 2018
Scholarly Research Project

Increasing Recruitment and Retention for Centering Pregnancy Group Prenatal Visits at the Shadyside Family Health Center

Asmau Misawa, MD; Rowena Pingul-Ravano, MD

Background

Centering pregnancy is an evidence-based model of group prenatal care, associated with reduced preterm birth.  In 2015, the Shadyside Family Health Center (SFHC) became the first site hosted by a Family Medicine practice.  To date, six cohorts of patients have completed the program.  SFHC recruited participants from the obstetrics (OB) patient panel, and included prenatal patients ≥ 20 weeks gestational age.  The Centering curriculum does not include a standardized recruiting method, so the OB coordinator recruited Cohorts 1-4 via telephone and email, as well as face-to-face at initial prenatal visits.  The aim of this project was to improve recruitment and retention of participants.

Methods

For Cohorts 5 and 6 this project included a continuity resident at each Centering session, provided faculty and resident education sessions, developed an Epic Smart phrase referral tool, and created a Facebook page.  This project received Quality Improvement committee approval.

Results

The six Centering cohorts included a total of 22 participants.  In comparison to Cohort 1 (n=6), and Cohorts 2-4 (n=3), Cohorts 5-6 (n=7-8) had an average of increase of 3-5 participants per session.  For Cohorts 5 and 6, 28% and 50% of Centering participants were referred by resident providers, respectively.  Of the 22 Centering participants, 100% delivered full-term.

Conclusion

In comparison to earlier cohorts, Cohorts 5-6 had a modest increase in participants.  Provider referrals proved to be a useful recruitment tool in addition to OB coordinator referrals.  Use of social media may prove to be a useful retention tool and merits additional study.