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The Minnesota Registration & Certification System (MR&C) not only collects birth data for individual birth records, it can also be used as an excellent birth data quality tool for Minnesota facilities. Birth registrars can access the REPORTS function of MR&C at any time and view a number of reports based on birth records in the system.
The Maternity & Newborn Activity Report is one of the available options. This report allows hospital staff to view aggregate birth data for each of the medical data elements on birth records from their facility. The report can be formatted for any range of dates, up to one year. If you want to discover the number of inductions, cases of chorio, or males verses females delivered last month or last year, this is the report for you!
This numbers-only report does not contain patient names or identifiers.
We recommend reviewing this report on a regular basis, and sharing it with OB leadership or senior management, to ensure that birth data matches your statistical records. Data elements can be checked for completeness and accuracy, and hospitals can get an idea of how well they record such data compared to statewide norms.
Soon, the Maternity & Newborn Activity Report will undergo some changes. A percentage column will be added to the facility report to quickly illustrate the frequency of occurrence of birth data items (e.g., what percent of last month’s deliveries were Cesarean sections?). Columns will also be added to indicate statewide total numbers and percentages – so you can see how your facility is doing, relative to the rest of Minnesota. In addition, some natality statistics will be added which reflect outcomes or processes of care. These can be tracked over time, and compared to the state average. We project the changes to the Maternity & Newborn Activity Report will occur during the first quarter of 2014.
Hospitals with quality improvement activities focused on maternity care may be interested in using these statistics as part of the data used for monitoring and comparing progress.
Best Practices Spotlight:
Essentia Health, St. Joseph's
(We will periodically spotlight hospitals throughout the state that are helping Minnesota lead the nation in birth registration. The first hospital we have chosen to spotlight is Essentia Health - St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Brainerd, Minnesota.)
Each month, staff members at St. Joseph’s Medical Center spend time reconciling the births occurring at their hospital to make sure they have all been entered into the Minnesota Certification and Registration (MR&C) system. Staff members also verify every data item that is entered on the birth record. If they determine a correction is needed, they go ahead and make the necessary correction to the record. If a certificate has been issued, a hospital statement is faxed to our office for us to amend the record. These best practices contribute to the high quality of the data received from St. Joseph’s Medical Center.
Please join us in congratulating St. Joseph’s Medical Center for a job well done!
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