As the marketing team responsible for UNC REX Healthcare’s maternity service line, we’re constantly looking for better ways to improve women’s birth experiences at our hospital.

For most patients, their first time at our hospital is when they come to take a birth class in their third trimester, or when they are in labor and arrive to deliver. That means we have to earn their trust months before they actually use our services. Part of our strategy for improving patient experience includes reaching out to future patients to provide education and answer their care questions as early in their pregnancy journey as we can.

In the past year, we’ve made some improvements that have allowed us to connect with a larger percentage of these women, and sooner—as early as their first OB visit to community practices who deliver at the REX Women’s Center.

Much has been written about the benefits of breastfeeding, but the overarching reason that exclusive breastfeeding promotion is such an important initiative for groups like the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee, World Health Organization, Baby-Friendly USA and the American Academy of Pediatrics is that breastfeeding is a preventive care issue.

Multiple studies have demonstrated that breastfeeding reduces the lifetime risk of diseases such as diabetes, asthma, obesity, heart disease and several types of cancer. As healthcare trends toward keeping people healthy rather than providing sick care, breastfeeding is an ideal way to keep the population well over time.

At East Jefferson General Hospital (EJGH) we took the commitment to exclusive breastfeeding a step further to become a baby-friendly hospital. Earning our baby-friendly designation was a rigorous 2-year process that challenged EJGH maternity staff to collaborate and implement innovative ideas for educating staff and patients about breastfeeding. Here’s what we learned along the way that might help you as your hospital pursues baby-friendly status.

By now it seems that every hospital has a patient portal. But is everyone—hospitals and patients alike—using them to their full potential? According to one survey, many patients still don’t know their providers offer portals. As providers, we also depend on getting patients to visit their portals to initiate patient-provider communication. When used well, portals help hospitals engage patients and meet Meaningful Use requirements. The challenge is in how to make good use of your patient portal.

HealthEast Care System was determined to use our portal to improve health outcomes through proactive, consistent health information that patients could access anywhere. Here’s how we did it.

In this era of patient-centered care, it’s important that hospitals always think about the patient first. That includes how and when they prefer to learn about their health and in-hospital care.

At Women & Infants Hospital in Rhode Island, part of the Care New England health system, we took this patient-centered approach when we recently launched an online birthing class called the “ Understanding Birth eClass.”

A patient-first approach, combined with the right tools to promote and deliver the right message at the right time, helped us connect the dots when communicating with, engaging and educating patients online.