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Background
Rural and regional health services often experience difficulties maintaining their
maternity services and skills of their midwifery workforce to enable women and their
babies to safely birth closer to home. The Maternity Connect Program (MCP) is a clinical
exposure education program for upskilling rural and regional midwives and nurses across
Victoria to meet their maternity population needs.
Aim
To evaluate the Maternity Connect Program from the perspectives and experiences of
participating midwives/nurses and health services.
Methods
A retrospective audit of data routinely collected from 2018-2021 by MCP as part of
a placements: Participants complete baseline survey (initial needs), and one month
and six month post placements surveys. Placement and base Health services are also
surveyed. The main outcome measures were: participants (midwives and health services)
level of satisfaction with the program; and changes in midwives/nurses perceived level
of confidence in performing key midwifery skills after participating in the program.
Results
Respondents (n=213 midwives/nurses; n=30 base health services; n=9 placement health
services) were satisfied with the programed there was an increase in midwives/nurses’
confidence when providing specific aspects of maternity care (birthing, neonatal,
and postnatal). Midwives/nurses report transferring skills learnt back to their base
health service.
Conclusion
The Maternity Connect Program appears to be a successful educational model for maintaining
and increasing clinician confidence in rural maternity health services. Furthermore,
it appears to be assisting with retention of the midwifery workforce in Victoria.
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Copyright
© 2022 Published by Elsevier Inc.
