World Patient Safety Summit Aims to Reduce Unnecessary C-Sections

Two survivors of C-section delivery and postpartum complications will be part of a distinguished panel at the upcoming 2018 World Patient Safety Science & Technology Summit in London, on Saturday, February 24.

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According to researchers, C-sections or deliveries of newborns by caesarean section, is on the rise but nearly half of those cases are unnecessary and complications from the procedure are not well known or understood. The Patient Safety Movement Foundation is pleased to announce the panelists participating in the upcoming Reducing Unnecessary C-Sections in Hospitals Panel. These include Jill Arnold and Kristen Terlizzi who have become fierce patient advocates since their near fatal experiences in delivering their infants by C-section and the complications that followed.

The Statistics: Internationally, C-sections are on the rise ranging from an average of 40.5% in Latin America/Caribbean area to 7.3% in Africa (Betran 2016). In the United States, one-third of patients give birth surgically (Martin, 2017) and international experts have identified this high cesarean rate as a significant maternal health safety issue (Council on Patient Safety in Women’s Health Care 2016).

Kristen Terlizzi’s post-partum medical care was so extreme, it inspired a scientific journal case study. An earlier C-section left her with a condition called Placenta Accreta – where placental tissue remains and spreads affecting other organs. Hemorrhaging during corrective surgery was so acute, she had her entire blood supply replaced.

Jill Arnold was the picture of health and breezed through a low-risk pregnancy and delivery but the lack of emphasis on postpartum care in the U.S. left her at risk. She began showing symptoms of DVT – Deep Vein Thrombosis – which could have easily killed her. “A leg-length clot had developed in a superficial vein that extended from my ankle all the way up to the groin,” said Arnold.

Unnecessary C-sections also pose long-term health risks including subsequent uterine scar rupture, abnormal placentation, increased risk of hemorrhage, and hysterectomy (Bauserman 2015, Marshall 2011, Rageth 1999, Galyean 2009) where there is an exponential increase in such complications with the number of prior cesareans (Clark 1985).

The Reducing Unnecessary C-sections panel will discuss best practices from around the world and announce the new Actionable Patient Safety Solutions related to this topic.

Members of the Global Panel include:

• Moderator: David C. Lagrew Jr., MD, Executive Medical Director of Women’s Service, St. Joseph-Hoag Health Region of Providence Healthcare – Dr. Lagrew is a maternal fetal medicine specialist and physician informaticist with a special interest in maternal quality improvement. He has helped develop and pioneer techniques in cesarean section reduction, emergent cesarean section drills, and maternal quality improvement in techniques.
• Panelists:
  • Kristen Terlizzi, Co-founder, National Accreta Foundation – Ms. Terlizzi now shares her patient story to educate audiences on abnormal placentation and the downstream costs of cesarean deliveries. Her medical case report is published in the official journal of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and her patient story has been featured in Vox Media, the Wall Street Journal and People.com.
  • Jill Arnold, Co-founder, National Accreta Foundation - Jill Arnold’s research on C-section, VBAC and other delivery method data led to the creation of a registry of national hospital-level data that Consumer Reports licensed in 2013. Jill currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Arkansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative Task Force Board, is an Editorial Board Member of the Institute for Perinatal Quality Improvement and an Expert Consultant to the Delivery Decisions Initiative at Harvard’s Ariadne Labs as well as serving as a member of the steering committee of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC) Maternal Data Center since 2013.
  • Siddarth Satish, Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Gauss Surgical - Siddarth Satish is the Founder and CEO of Gauss Surgical, a medical technology company using computer vision and machine learning to make surgery and childbirth safer and more cost-effective. He serves on the Technology Committee of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation, and was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in healthcare.
  • Robert M. Silver, MD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Utah Health Sciences Center – Dr. Silver joined the University of Utah Maternal-Fetal Medicine Division after completing his fellowship there in 1994. He is serving as the Chief of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine and as Co-Director of Labor and Delivery at the UUHSC.

For more information, please visit the Patient Safety Movement Foundation website. Members of the media may request a press pass by visiting http://bit.ly/2mCeyay or by contacting Tanya Lyon – phone (949) 351-2858 or email tanya.lyon@patientsafetymovement.org.

About Patient Safety Movement Foundation:

More than 200,000 U.S. patients and three million worldwide die each year from preventable causes. The Patient Safety Movement Foundation (PSMF) was established through the support of the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation, and Competition in Healthcare to reduce that number of preventable deaths to zero by 2020 (0X2020). Improving patient safety requires a collaborative effort from all stakeholders, including patients, healthcare providers, medical technology companies, government, employers, and private payers. The PSMF works with all stakeholders to address problems with actionable solutions. The Foundation also convenes the World Patient Safety, Science and Technology Summit bringing together some of the world’s best minds for thought-provoking discussions and new ideas that challenge the status quo. By presenting specific, high-impact solutions to meet patient safety challenges, called Actionable Patient Safety Solutions, encouraging medical technology companies to share the data their products are purchased for, and asking hospitals to make commitments to implement Actionable Patient Safety Solutions, the Patient Safety Movement Foundation is working toward zero preventable deaths by 2020. Visit http://patientsafetymovement.org/.

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Contact information

Patient Safety Movement Foundation
Tanya Lyon, (949) 351-2858
tanya.lyon@patientsafetymovement.org