National Partnership for Maternal Safety: Maternal Safety Bundles

US maternal mortality has unexpectedly increased over the past 25 years. A national imperative exists to identify and evaluate the causes of these deaths as well as characterize preventable factors. Evidence demonstrates that implementing comprehensive protocols improves outcomes. In fact, bundles, evidence-based interventions that are designed to be implemented together resulting in improved outcome, are recognized as the explanation for the dramatic decrease in California’s maternal mortality rate as compared to the continued rise in national maternal mortality rate between 2008 and 2013. Consequently, the National Partnership for Maternal Safety (NPMS), housed within the Council on Patient Safety in Women’s Health Care, created bundles for each of the three most common preventable conditions resulting in severe maternal morbidity or mortality: obstetric hemorrhage, severe hypertension, and venous thromboembolism.