Developing standards of care for obese women during pregnancy

Quality of health care is evolving continuously as our knowledge and understanding of disease phenomenon is changing. A lot of professional organizations are now developing clinical guidelines for the professional, but this plethora of knowledge is sometimes overwhelming for health-care managers who may not be necessarily experts in each areas of the medicine. The professionals and the managers are under constant pressure to demonstrate that patients (consumers) are getting the best quality care. Standards of care are derived from guidelines and provide a specific and measurable target along the patient’s journey to reflect the quality of care that a prudent health-care professional should provide to be effective and safe for the patient. Standards of care act as auditable tools to measure quality of care provided by the individuals and the organizations to meet the benchmark.