State health agencies and quality improvement in perinatal care.

The origin of the federal-state partnership in Maternal and Child Health (MCH) can be traced from the Children's Bureau grants of 1912, through the Sheppard-Towner Act, to the creation of Title V and other programs of today that mandate planning, accountability, and systems development. In the past decade with the transformation of the health care system and the emergence of managed care, there has been a resurgence of interest in public, professional, and governmental interest in quality measurement and accountability. Regional perinatal systems have been implemented in all states with varying levels of involvement by state health agencies and the public sector. This historical framework discusses two primary themes: the decades of evolution in the federal-state partnership, and the emergence in the last three decades of perinatal regional system policy, and suggests that the structure of the federal-state partnership has encouraged state variation. A survey of state MCH programs was undertaken to clarify their operational and perceived role in promoting quality improvement in perinatal care. Data and information from the survey, along with five illustrative state case studies, demonstrate great variation in how individual state agencies function. State efforts in quality improvement, a process to make things better, have four arenas of activity: policy development and implementation, definition and measurement of quality, data collection and analysis, and communication to affect change. Few state health agencies (through their MCH programs and perinatal staff) are taking action in all four arenas. This analysis concludes that there are improvements MCH programs could implement without significant expansion in their authority or resources and points out that there is an opportunity for states to be more proactive as they have the legal authority and responsibility for assuring MCH outcomes.