Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1468749
50 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT 'Birthing-friendly' hospital designation to launch in 2023, CMS says By Mackenzie Bean C MS will roll out a "birthing-friendly" designation for hospitals in fall 2023 as part of a larger effort to improve maternal health outcomes, the agency said April 13. The publicly reported quality designation will initially be based on the Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting Program's maternal morbid- ity structural measure. The reporting period for this measure opened in October 2021, and hospitals were slated to submit data for the first time in May. CMS will post hospitals' data for October to December 2021 this fall and publish a list of hospitals receiving the designation in fall 2023. The agency said it intends to expand the criteria for the birthing-friendly designation in the future. n Mount Sinai launches US' 1st clinic to reduce stillbirths By Erica Carbajal N ew York City-based Mount Sinai Health System launched the nation's first multidisciplinary clinic dedicated to reducing stillbirths in March. The health system opened the Mount Sinai-Rainbow Clinic in partnership with PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy, a nonprofit organization that works with healthcare organizations to drive down stillbirth incidence. e clinic "will support women and their families who have experi- enced stillbirth by providing enhanced clinical care and psycholog- ical support in subsequent pregnancies to help reduce fear, anxiety and future perinatal losses," according to a news release. It will oper- ate based on a model established in the U.K. by Alexander Heazell, PhD, an expert in stillbirth research. In addition to providing care, the clinic will be tasked with leading research aimed at better under- standing risk factors that contribute to stillbirth. e clinic will be housed in the Raquel and Jaime Gilinski Depart- ment of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine. "Our goal for the Rainbow Clinic is to help women who have experienced the loss of a baby to achieve a successful pregnancy by providing them with access to state-of-the art services and support that goes beyond standard prenatal care to meet all of their needs," said Joanne Stone, MD, Ellen and Howard C. Katz chair of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science at Icahn School of Medicine. Dr. Stone will lead the new clinic. n CMS releases health equity plan, encourages leaders to participate By Georgina Gonzalez C MS has released a multipronged health equity strategy to be used throughout the agency and is encouraging healthcare leaders to get involved in creating sustainable, equitable strategies, CMS reported April 20. Each CMS office has been charged with improving health equity by embedding several strategies into all work. The strategies include expanding outreach of existing programs, evaluating policies to de- termine how CMS can support safety-net providers and expanding and standardizing the use of data. CMS is also encouraging health leaders to take health equity seriously and fold it into their own system's strategies. To do so it is convening providers, leaders, payers and state officials to share best practices and learn how to create effective health equity initiatives. "We can't achieve our health system goals until everyone can attain the highest level of health. That's why I am inviting the healthcare in- dustry to work alongside CMS as we transform the way patients are cared for in our country," said Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, CMS admin- istrator. "Health equity will be embedded within the DNA of CMS and serve as the lens through which we view all of our work." n