There are many great reasons why hospitals choose to work toward baby-friendly hospital status. There are also plenty of ways to encourage breastfeeding in line with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines, without having that official Baby-Friendly Hospital title.

Whether or not you’re pursuing baby-friendly status, your hospital can effectively support breastfeeding promotion among staff and patients. Here are 5 ways to go about it:

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.

For some time now, health systems have been expected to use digital technology to manage a patient’s episode of care beyond the doctor’s office or hospital.

Harnessing the wealth of data on patient populations experiencing the same care episodes, digital health technology can connect providers with their patients safely, efficiently and on a large scale.

Best of all, providers can guide whole populations through their care in a way that feels extremely personal to patients.

This infographic offers some insight. 

Hospital executives and patient educators often ask me how patients—particularly younger ones—like to communicate with their doctors nowadays in the age of millennials and apps.

Patients are people and we need to engage them as such. Regardless of age or other factors, they use email and text all the time in their daily lives and want to communicate with their doctors, hospitals and physician practices through those channels too.