The Perinatal Partnership Program of Eastern and Southeastern

With approximately 100 deliveries each
year, the birth of each baby at Renfrew
Victoria Hospital is marked as a celebration
by both the family and the health care team.
Thanks to a regional partnership, the
hospital is able to combine this personal
approach with a very professional level of
service that is informed by a broad range of
expertise and specialized knowledge.
The Perinatal Partnership Program of
Eastern and Southeastern Ontario (PPPESO)
links 37 health care facilities with the latest in
perinatal research, education and information.
“It’s a great program,” comments Dr.
Stephanie Langlois. “It provides us with a
positive association with Ottawa and gives
our team the resources we need in terms of
good education and information-sharing.”
Lynn Campbell, nurse manager of
obstetrics at RVH, notes that the local hospital has been a member of PPPESO for the
past 15 years.
Each hospital, health department,
community agency or private practitioner
partnered with PPPESO is assigned a
representative who acts as their knowledge
broker, ready to investigate any questions
with consultants and experts throughout
the network.
The partnership also provides telehealth
information sessions each month, continuing
education courses and a two-day annual
conference.
Campbell attended the last conference
where some workshops took a step away
from the medical focus and provided tools
to help health care professionals
emotionally support mothers-to-be in tough
decisions they may experience while
preparing for a birth.
“They cover a broad scope of issues,”
she says.
The group is also helpful in keeping up
on trends or changes in perinatal practice
and is quick to pass this information along.
PPPESO promotes adoption of best
practices and helps hospitals standardize
their programs with the rest of the region.
The visiting team, which included an
Since 1997 PPPESO has been collecting
data and compiling complete records for obstetrician and a neonatalogist, were a
great resource for RVH’s new in-house
every birth among its partners.
The data provides valuable follow-up obstetrics accreditation team, which conreports on each case to give the local nurses sists of physicians and nurses as well as a
and physicians a “complete picture”, says lab technician, ultrasound technologist, OR
Campbell. In rare instances where a mother nurse and a nurse from palliative care.
“Like the overall hospital accreditation
has to be transferred to Ottawa for
emergency care, the data provides the local process, these reviews give us an
team with extended information about what opportunity to look at our programs with a
happened in transport and at the receiving fresh set of eyes,” says RVH Vice-President
hospital as well as the care provided to the of Patient Care Services Chris Ferguson. “It
validates all of the good work our team is
newborn at CHEO.
As well as extending the network out- doing, and it gives us new ideas and
ward, the PPPESO partnership also delivers inspiration to improve.”
expertise within the
local hospital. Earlier
this month, a PPPESO
review team visited
RVH to review the
obstetrics program and
services.
“We had lots of
compliments from the
Ottawa team,” Campbell
comments, explaining
that the reviewers analyzed the 103 births in
the previous fiscal year
to identify trends in
everything from the
rate of moms choosing
to breastfeed, to the
hospital’s cesarean sec- Nurse Jeanette Lingley with Nurse Manager Lynn Campbell
tion rate.
in the RVH obstetrics unit.