Nomenclature for Models of Care Stage 1

Completed June 2013

Stage 1

The development of a suitable nomenclature for maternity models of care was undertaken by NPESU under the guidance of the Nomenclature for Models of Care Working Party (NMoC WP). The NMoC WP included members from the NMDDP Advisory Group in addition to representatives of various professional Colleges, clinicians and data custodians.

Stage 1 of the Nomenclature for Models of Care Project (NMoC) included a review of both the published literature and jurisdictional/national policy documentation relating to maternity models of care and the development of nomenclatures and classification systems. The report resulting from the literature review suggested that a simple naming system would not capture the differences found between models that share the same name, even if common definitions were agreed upon. In contrast, a classification system would have the ability to group items that have similar characteristics into higher level groupings for comparisons while still having sufficient precision to uniquely identify different models.

Following an extensive consultation process involving forums in each jurisdiction, a national workshop and a national electronic survey, a solution was developed that would allow models of care to be classified according to the characteristics of the women cared for in the model, the carers providing care and how the care was provided. The Maternity Care Classification System or MaCCS would allow hospitals to classify their models of care on an annual basis (or when introducing a new model) based on their individual characteristics and assign each model to a Major Model Category (MMC). The MMC are a set of agreed names and descriptions for broad categories of models of care and would provide a name or label to be assigned to each model to record in health information systems and in the perinatal data collections. By assigning a MMC to each model, it will be possible to report on the range of models of care available to women in each jurisdiction using common terminology (such as Team midwifery care, Private obstetrician (specialist) care, Shared maternity care etc) but also allow for more in-depth analysis based on characteristics of models,  such as the level of continuity of carer, whether the model is targeted for a specific group of women (such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women) or whether care was offered in a certain location (such as at home, birth centre or Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation location).

Stage 1 of the NMoC Project concluded with an agreed theoretical model for the MaCCS which included a questionnaire containing sixteen new data items for a new Model of Care Data Set Specification (MoC DSS), eleven Major Model Categories and at last one new item for Model of Care to be added to the proposed Perinatal DSS (with a view to being migrated to the Perinatal National Minimum Data Set (NMDS) at a later date).