“I tell my patients that I’ve stayed at Seton so long is because of the excellent care we provide.”
Diana Weihs, M.D., Women Partners in Health, Austin
When the little things count the most
For Dr. Diana Weihs, the notion of safe, high-quality patient care at Seton is nothing new. She has been delivering babies at Seton for 26 years as part of her women’s medical practice in Austin, and she served as chief of Seton Medical Center’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Section in 1995. As a testimony to her personal trust in Seton’s maternity care, she had all four of her own babies at Seton. “We always strive to follow evidence-based guidelines and do the best thing for the patient to provide the best possible outcome,” she observes.
About eight years ago, when she became concerned about a particular complication in labor and delivery, she delved into the statistics. She discovered that the problem was not as frequent as she had feared, but she was hooked on the idea that tracking outcomes could point the way to better care. She was invited to join the Seton safety committee on infant and maternal health and early on attended a meeting of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in St. Louis. “I got excited about the changes we could make by looking at the basics, and I thought there was no reason why our hospital can’t provide the best quality of obstetric care,” she recalls. “We have great doctors and nursing staff, a great Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and a great adult ICU when needed.”
When the Seton safety initiative first led to changes in general obstetric practice, following new national guidelines, no one knew whether it would make any difference in actual outcomes at Seton. “The initial number of birth traumas at Seton was very low, but we reduced it lower than ever,” she reports. “Long before it was in the news, we changed our standard so that we would not induce labor before 39 weeks, unless medically necessary, which, in turn, reduced the number of near-term babies going to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Everyone has worked together to make baby care safer. I’m really proud that Seton has put so much energy and resources behind safety throughout the network.”