Session Detail

Obstetrics has changed dramatically over the past several years. While women-of-child-bearing-age remains 15 to mid-40s, the age gap of first-time mothers has widened toward two extremes with more younger teenagers and older women giving birth for the first time. This, paired with socio-economic impacts, provides an increased volume of higher-risk mothers and babies. Multiple surveyed facilities will be compared, with both quantitative and qualitative data being presented. Each have a greater percentage of high-risk mothers which impact the design solutions while addressing external influencers – market forces, patient populations, facility conditions, site constraints, continued operations, etc. While each provides institution-specific goals they each address four common goals: improve the patient and family experience, maximize operation efficiencies, reflect and respond to market, prepare for inevitable change.