TUESDAY, Dec. 10, 2024 (HealthDay News) — There was a net loss of hospital-based obstetric care in both rural and urban U.S. hospitals from 2010 to 2022, according to a research letter published online Dec. 4 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Katy B. Kozhimannil, Ph.D., from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis, and colleagues quantified losses and gains of obstetric care at rural and urban short-term acute care hospitals between 2010 and 2022 (4,964 short-term acute care hospitals; 1,982 in rural counties). The analysis included data from the American Hospital Association annual surveys and U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Provider of Services files (2010 to 2022).
The researchers found that in 2010, 43.1 percent of rural hospitals and 29.7 percent of urban hospitals did not offer obstetric care. There was a net loss of obstetric services at U.S. hospitals each subsequent year. There were 537 hospitals that lost obstetrics between 2010 and 2022, which were split between 238 rural hospitals and 299 urban hospitals. The gain of obstetrics in 138 hospitals was concentrated heavily among urban hospitals (112 versus 26 rural hospitals). More than half of rural hospitals (52.4 percent) and one-third of urban hospitals (35.7 percent) did not offer obstetric care in 2022.
“Access to obstetric care is an important determinant of maternal and infant health outcomes, and amidst a maternal health crisis in the U.S., hospital-based obstetric care has declined in both rural and urban communities,” the authors write.
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