A Quality Improvement Project for Care Transitions of Incarcerated Women [03C

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Currently incarcerated pregnant women face significant barriers when they seek health care services within prisons and jails, but little is known about transitions from state prison health care systems to outside hospitals. METHODS: With the goal of developing a policy to improve these transitions, we conducted in-depth interviews with key stakeholders at a state prison, university hospital, and local private hospital to identify the barriers and facilitators to care transitions for incarcerated pregnant women. RESULTS: Key themes emerging from the interviews were operational, including transfer of medical records, communication between systems, and education of providers, and structural, including care of marginalized populations and implicit biases. CONCLUSION: Policy changes to improve transitions of care may include the addition of a dedicated pregnancy care coordinator and a standardization of a clinician-to-clinician sign-out process. This work has the potential to motivate changes to the policies that govern care of incarcerated pregnant women, and stimulate the delivery of more effective and efficient health care to this population.