New Data Analysis by The Leapfrog Group and Castlight Health Finds Maternity Care in U.S. Hospitals Improving, But Still Not Meeting Expert Standards

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Feb 23, 2015, 08:00 ET

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Nonprofit watchdog The Leapfrog Group today released its Maternity Care Report, an in-depth examination of hospital quality and safety nationwide for early elective deliveries, episiotomies and high-risk deliveries. The analysis reveals significant room for improvement on maternity care standards, despite recent progress.

Key findings include:

Many hospitals fail to meet standard for high-risk deliveries: Only 24.4 percent of hospitals meet Leapfrog's standard, indicating too many very low birth weight babies are born in hospitals unprepared to care for their special needs.
Early elective delivery rates decline: The national average for early elective deliveries was 3.4 percent, the lowest rate since Leapfrog began public reporting of this measure.
Episiotomy rates are improving: Sixty-five percent of hospitals achieved the target rate of 12 percent or less for episiotomies.
However, big variations in episiotomy rates exist: Thirty-five percent of hospitals permit too many episiotomies. At the advice of its Maternity Care Expert Panel, Leapfrog's 2015 target rate will change to five percent.

This is the first in a series of six reports based on the 2014 Leapfrog Hospital Survey of 1,501 U.S. hospitals and data analysis provided by Castlight Health. Future publications will be available at http://www.leapfroggroup.org/HospitalSurveyReport

About The Leapfrog Group
National nonprofit watchdog The Leapfrog Group evaluates and reports on the safety and quality performance of U.S. hospitals for the benefit of consumers, employers and other health care purchasers. Leapfrog is deeply committed to increasing transparency among health care providers in order to achieve its goal of reducing the estimated 440,000 annual deaths from unnecessary hospital errors. Findings from the Leapfrog Hospital Survey provide consumers with potentially lifesaving information on hospital quality.

About Castlight Health
Castlight Health, Inc. is the leader in Enterprise Healthcare Management. Recognized as a top 2014 software platform by the HR Technology Conference & Exposition, Castlight's Enterprise Healthcare Cloud enables employers to understand and manage all their healthcare investments while helping employees make the best possible healthcare decisions. For more information visit www.castlighthealth.com. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn and Like us on Facebook. Source: Castlight Health.