Report on Health Data Analysis: Rural Maternity Services in Australia

This report analyzes health data concerning maternity services in rural Australia, focusing on performance indicators from 2014-2015. The analysis centers on the rate of term infants without congenital anomalies requiring additional care, highlighting variations across public hospitals. It discusses the significance of this indicator in evaluating the quality of care, particularly in the context of rural healthcare challenges. The report explores the impact of hospital closures in rural areas, the need for accessible maternity care, and the importance of workforce strengthening to improve health outcomes. The analysis underscores the need for implementing this performance indicator in rural hospitals to assess and enhance the ongoing maternity services, addressing the specific needs of rural communities and ensuring sustainable regional development.

Running head: HEALTH DATA
Health Data
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HEALTH DATA
Maternity services in Australian rural sectors have undergone considerable change in the
recent past. Data furnished in the report for the year 2014-2015, has paid attention to certain
perinatal indicators that represent the performances that are taking place in the relevant domain.
Among the ten performance indicators, indicator 2 that accounts for describing the rate of term
infants without congenital anomalies who require additional care may be selected for an
elaborate discussion, focusing on the pivotal issue of maternity services that are in vogue in the
rural area hospitals in Australia. According to the published data, it is evident that there remains
considerable variation as far as rate of term infants having no congenital anomalies who are in
need of additional care across public health hospitals accounting for about 0% to 21.8%. Further,
it has been depicted that ten state-wise rate of public hospitals has gone up from 71% in 2007-
2008 to about 8.5% in 2014-2015, thereby suggesting the prevalence of quality of care services
that are available during labor, at the time of birth, as well as in immediate neonatal period. The
time span following immediate after birth, some of the babies might develop symptoms and
encounter certain medical problems that cannot be resolved with the realm of usual care services
that are normally meant for the babies born without any congenital abnormalities or other related
complications. Instead, superior and specialized medical interventions are desirable to effectively
deal with such neonates. Therefore, admission to special care nursery or neonatal intensive care
unit may be necessary under such circumstances to resolve the ensuing situation. The term infant
terminology is applicable to newborns that are born after 37 weeks of gestation. Hence, timely
evaluation and review of this performance indicator is a welcome measure to understand the
extent to which the health services might adopt definite strategies to detect whether there are
avoidable reasons circumscribing the higher care needs for babies. The scenario specific to the
rural maternity services as opposed to the metropolitan hospitals in terms of providing maternity

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HEALTH DATA
services to the concerned population reveals that definite confounding factors impact on the
quality of the facilities delivered within the framework of healthcare. However, empirical
evidences have shown that Australian rural maternity units across a timeframe of past 20 years
have shut down owing to safety issues in addition to impact of paraphernalia that encompass cost
incurred and healthcare staff shortage even though the overall infant mortality rate has reduced
drastically in Australia. The step of shifting the maternity services from the rural zones to the
metropolitan areas may be cited as a regressive measure because rural women are more prone to
face obstetric challenges in contrast with the urban women. The suitable financial and technical
resources are capable of providing both effective and safe maternity services in the context of
rural healthcare framework. Moreover, it has been shown that for mothers aged less than 20
years, the need for safe and accessible maternity care is particularly high in remote and rural
areas. Survey for the National Rural Health Alliance and the Rural Doctors Association of
Australia for the year 2010, represented that only 12% expressed satisfaction of access to quality
maternity services, thereby suggesting the disapproval of the availability of adequate resource to
ensure quality service for the concerned group within their own community settings. Closure of
maternity services in the rural areas is not an economic measure as per the perception of the
community dwellers and their families on the part of the healthcare system for the sake of
sustainable regional development. Workforce strengthening and actions taken in keeping with
the changing times must be taken by the rural hospitals to enhance the health related outcome
and ensure wellbeing. Therefore, this performance indicator should be implemented in the rural
hospital scenario to evaluate the ongoing maternity services.