ERIN EDGEMON, Business Editor
Posted: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 10:16 am

Anthony and Chassie Harris hold their newborn daughter Ella Laydn.

One day while working in the gift shop at Middle Tennessee Medical Center, Caroline Goolsby, who was six weeks shy of her due date for her second child, started having pains in her stomach.

As a precaution, she went to see her obstetrician who has an office near the hospital.

Less than 30 minutes after having her baby hooked up to a heart monitor, the baby’s heart rate began to drop.

Goolsby was immediately rushed to MTMC Labor and Delivery and within 15 minutes of being in her doctor’s office, her baby was born.

“They didn’t know if she was going to make it at first,” Goolsby said.

Remarkably, doctors performed CPR on newborn Catherine Lily for about 10 minutes before she began to breathe. She spent 16 days in the hospital, having as many as 25 seizures a day.

It is not known what happened to Catherine, but five months later she is completely healthy, her mother said.

Goolsby credits the quick action of MTMC staff for her daughter being alive today.

“If anyone would have stepped out (of the hospital), she wouldn’t have made it,” she said.

MTMC’s Maternity Services, which delivers more than 2,500 babies a year, is now recognized as one of the best hospitals in the country for childbirth safety and patient satisfaction.

MTMC had zero birth traumas for fiscal year 2008, well below the national average, said Janet McIntosh, director of MTMC Maternity Services.

Nationally, the average incidence of birth trauma is three a year per 1,000 babies born.

Birth trauma is defined as a preventative physical injury to an infant during birth.

McIntosh said MTMC takes special care in training its healthcare workers and has additional services most hospitals don’t provide.

MTMC is equipped with a neonatal intensive care unit, which allows the hospital to care for premature, ill or at-risk newborns. Board-certified neonatologists are present at the hospital at all times to care for these infants.

MTMC also offers critical-care babies the most advanced technology, some only available at a few hospitals in the country.

The hospital was the first in Middle Tennessee to have a Laborist Program, which means there is a board-certified obstetrician in the hospital at all times, McIntosh said.

“That has really made a big difference in our outcomes,” she said.

Additionally, obstetricians and labor and delivery nurses have training tools available such as a computerized mannequin that allows them to simulate difficult deliveries.

But McIntosh said mothers can have safe deliveries and still not come away from the hospital with “happy memories.

“It is a real focus here,” she said of patient satisfaction. “We require our nurses to be caring and very personable. That is just as important to us as clinical skills.”

Anthony and Chassie Harris didn’t know when to expect when Chassie was admitted into the hospital to give birth to their first child.

But they said the caregivers at Middle Tennessee Medical Center quickly put them at ease.

“They took extra steps to make sure I was comfortable,” Chassie said a day after giving birth to her daughter, Ella Laydn Harris, on Aug. 12.

As she holds her healthy baby in her arms, Chassie, herself a nursing major at MTSU, said her nurses had a good sense of humor and took their time when teaching her how to breast feed or take care of the new baby.

The Harris’ aren’t alone. Most patients of MTMC’s Maternity Services are more than satisfied with the care they receive.

MTMC Maternity Services is in the 95th percentile, for patient satisfaction, according to patient surveys, when compared to other hospitals of its size.

Press Ganey, a nationally recognized organization that surveys healthcare users/patients about their experience during their stay in the hospital, performed the surveys.

McIntosh said this is the first year that Maternity Services has scored consistently in the 90s for patient satisfaction.

She said these types are scores are “highly unusual.”

Erin Edgemon can be reached at 869-0812 and at eedgemon@murfreesboropost.com.
MTMC Maternity Services Patient Satisfaction Survey Results for 2008

Patients likely to recommend MTMC to family and friends: 93 percent
Friendliness/courtesy of nurses: 96.2 percent
Pain was controlled: 90.5 percent
Staff was attentive to emotional needs: 90 percent
Speed/Friendliness of Admission: 97.9 percent
Pleased with care after delivery through discharge: 93 percent
Pleased with care during labor and birth experience: 98 percent
Pleased with nurses: 97 percent
Overall, how would you rate your maternity experience? 4.62 on a scale of 5.