Thursday, August 6, 2009

Realigning the C-section incentives

Check out my new piece on Crosscut about steps Washington state is taking to reduce C-sections by, as President Obama would say, "realigning incentives. It's on the homepage right now; find the permalink here.

5 comments:

earthmama said...

I LOVE this. Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing it to public attention. And thank you Washington State for taking the lead!

Anonymous said...

Even though he wouldn't give you the cesarean rate hospital to hospital, that information is publicly available through the Department of Health. I took the time to compile the data: www.snohomishcountydoula.com/2008hospitalcesareanrates.pdf

Carolyn McConnell said...

Great! Thanks for doing this. I wish, though, that hospitals were required to provide these stats and others (such as episiotomy rates, etc) to all prospective childbirth patients.

Anonymous said...

Super, Carolyn!


Is there any other state following the move?

Carolyn McConnell said...

That's a great question. I don't know about other states. Let me know if you find anything out! The doctor from California I spoke to might be a resource.