Global Task Force on Quality Perinatal Care During COVID -19

We have convened a multidisciplinary Perinatal Task Force on Birth Setting during Covid-19 to create guidance for a coordinated strategy and rational allocation of human resources, and mobilization of community facilities, providers, and supplies. To harness the benefits of “shelter at home” for asymptomatic pregnant families, we are planning for triage and matching of hospital-based providers to meet increased demand for community birth and increase overall capacity, while also repurposing outpatient surgical centers to function as rapid response maternity units or birth centers, and coordinating workforce and supplies flow, including PPE. We will develop and share a comprehensive package for a multi-tier, scaffolding plan for reallocation of care to community settings, that can be adapted to individual jurisdictions.

The Task Force currently includes experts from around the globe, including UN Midwife leaders who work in disaster and refugee management, health policy makers, multi-level cadres of health workers, and physicians, midwives, Public Health Departments, and regulators from the UK, US, Canada, Malawai, Uganda, India, Mexico, Afghanistan, Australia, Columbia, and the Netherlands who are working on similar assignments. Our resource package is growing, and we have organized them to maximize accessibility and translation to an interactive tool. You can read Task Force member bios here. 

Our main and circumscribed goals are to:

1. Develop an algorithm/template for rapid reorganization of community midwives, health workers, and rapid response maternity units to safely triage care.
2. Codify and disseminate existing best practice guidelines to maintain safety in the context of respectful, person-centered care.
3. Create an interactive, online repository of key documents (protocols, forms, assessment/screening/ triage and collaboration guidelines) that faciliatate rapid reallocation of care across birth settings and providers, etc.

Please complete this survey if you are a community based perinatal provider, health worker for childbearing families, health systems planner, policymaker, community educator, or parent who is engaged in pandemic/disaster management or research, and have the capacity (2-4hrs/week) to be an active member of this Task Force. Subcommittee Meetings are weekly, and the full Task Force meets in the first week of the month. Please review a description of the Subcommittees here.