Centralisation of acute obstetric care in the Netherlands : a qualitative study to explore the experiences of stakeholders with adaptations in organisation of care

Lauri M. M. van den Berg, Bernardus Benjamin Maria Gordon, Sophia M. Kleefstra, Lucie Martijn, Jeroen van Dillen, Corine J. Verhoeven, Ank de Jonge

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background: In the past decade, acute obstetric care (AOC) has become centralised in many high-income countries. In this qualitative study, we explored how stakeholders in maternity care perceived and experienced adaptations in the organisation of maternity care in areas in the Netherlands where AOC was centralised. Methods: A heterogenic group of fifteen maternity care stakeholders, including patients, were purposively selected for semi-structured interviews. An inductive thematic analysis was used. Results: Three main themes were identified: (1) lack of involvement. (2) the process of making adaptations in the organisation of maternity care. (3) maintaining quality of care. Stakeholders in this study were highly motivated to maintain a high quality of maternity care and therefore made adaptations at several organisational levels. However, they felt a lack of involvement during the planning of centralisation of AOC and highlighted the importance of a collaborative process when making adaptations after centralisation of AOC. Conclusions: Regions with AOC centralisation plans should invest time and money in change management, encourage early involvement of all maternity care stakeholders and acknowledge centralisation of AOC as a professional life event with associated emotions, including a feeling of unsafety.
Original languageEnglish
Article number1233
Number of pages9
JournalBMC Health Services Research
Volume21
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

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© The Author(s). 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

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