Childbirth remains the most common reason for hospital admission in British Columbia, accounting for one in 10 hospitalizations. Obstetrical care providers regularly introduce new policies and practices to ensure that standards for maternity care reflect best-available, current evidence. This evidence, however, is often derived from randomized trials, which are conducted in highly-controlled settings with study cohorts that are not always representative of real-world populations.
Our work mobilizes British Columbia’s existing research resources to evaluate the real-world impact of obstetrical policies and practices on pregnant individuals in British Columbia and their newborns. We bring together:
- A world-class population perinatal database, the BC Perinatal Database Registry, which contains clinically-detailed, abstracted medical records linkable to a number of other population databases, and available to BC researchers at no cost, in a timely manner, through the BC Women’s Health Research Institute.
- Academic researchers with expertise in perinatal database and health policy analysis.
- A single academic department of Obstetrics (UBC Obstetrics & Gynaecology), with distributed sites across the province, supporting province-wide coordination of academic activities and continuing medical education.
- A provincial agency (Perinatal Services BC) providing leadership, support, and coordination for the strategic planning of perinatal services in BC.