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Investigation reveals Charlotte-area hospitals skip steps, putting women at risk during childbirth

By Kristin Leigh
By Kristin Leigh

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Thousands of women suffer life-altering injuries or die during childbirth every year because hospitals and medical staff skip important steps, a USA Today investigation found.

[RELATED: More pregnant women are having heart attacks, here's why]

A sobering report published Thursday morning, found hospitals across the nation, including hospitals in the Charlotte area, are ignoring basic, inexpensive procedures during childbirth.

The four-year-long investigation found doctors put new mothers at risk of stroke, emergency hysterectomy and even death because they don't properly measure increases in blood pressure and blood loss.

The report names three hospitals under Atrium Health's umbrella in the Charlotte metro area that fail to provide proper care: Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, Carolinas Healthcare System NorthEast in Concord and Carolinas Healthcare System Stanly in Albemarle.

Channel 9 spoke with mothers at Freedom Park on Thursday and most of them said they had a bad experience during childbirth, or they know someone who did.

Rachel Blankenbecler said a friend of hers nearly lost her life but survived.

"She lost so much blood, she didn't see her baby for hours," Blankenbecler said. "She didn't know if her baby was alive. She kept going in and out of consciousness."

Another Charlotte mother, Rebecca Robbins, opted out of the hospital experience.

"We chose home birth and to use a birthing center's midwife," Robbins said.

After seeing data in USA Today's report, Robbins said she's not surprised by the performances of her local hospitals.

In North Carolina, 160 women suffer injuries per 10,000 child births, compared to an average of 144 in the United States, according to the USA Today report.

At Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, 39 percent of women didn't get proper care, the investigation found. The failure rate was 78 percent at Carolinas Healthcare System Northeast in Concord and nearly 90 percent at Carolinas Healthcare System Stanly in Albemarle.

"I think there's enough information out there that they should be better," Blankenbecler said, speaking of doctors in the report who refuse to measure blood loss and other vital signs.

Blankenbecler said she believes hospitals need to focus more on individual patients and their medical needs during childbirth.

"When I had all four of my children at three hospitals, all in Charlotte, I feel like it was almost like buying a house," she said. "It was just like a process. It wasn't personal."

Mothers are frustrated but not surprised by the numbers in the report, and they expect more from their health care providers.

"I feel like there's so many people in the room," Robbins said. "There's so many shift changes. With more people, there's more opportunity to forget something or drop the ball here and there."

Atrium Health statement about USA Today maternal safety article:

"Atrium Health's highest priority is the safety and well-being of our patients. This is one of the reasons we have repeatedly been chosen to participate in national quality and safety initiatives, and have been recognized as a national leader in performance improvement, as recently demonstrated by being an honoree of the American Hospital Association's 2018 Quest for Quality award. The data used for the USA Today maternal safety article is three years old and the primary goal of our participation in the program cited in the article was to build a culture of continual improvement and develop and spread best-practices – all of which we are achieving. We have never compromised on quality and safety and we never will.

 “Our successes include:

  • Adopting best-practice and early-adopter procedures in 2015 of quantifying blood loss by weight to accurately measure how much blood loss occurs.
  • Implementing hemorrhage AIM safety bundles – including having pharmacy carts in place and medication for OB hemorrhage available in all rooms.
  • Developing a broad hypertension management initiative – which includes preeclampsia – based on American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists guidelines for hypertension management to ensure treating patients appropriately based on severity of disease.
  • Seeing hypertension patients in OB offices within 7 to 10 days post-delivery, versus the normal 4- to 6-week follow-up post-delivery to ensure that we are able to prevent any potential complication.
  • Improving system-wide performance for medications given within 60 minutes for severe range blood pressure by nearly 25 percentage points between 2016 and 2017.
  • Reviewing patient safety data on a monthly basis to ensure we continue to meet high standards in these areas. 

“As with any clinical measurement, there are appropriate medical decisions that can impact the data. Our goal is to establish best practices while affording our clinicians the ability to make the most appropriate and safest care decisions for each individual patient.

 “We will continue working to find ways to improve safety and maternal outcomes for all families that entrust us with their care.”

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