Sacramento, CA – California Surgeon General Dr. Diana Ramos, along with Cal Hospital Compare, recognized hospitals across California today for their high performance in maternity care using a new honor roll methodology comprising of 5 maternal health metrics or by meeting the historic recognition criteria.
- 94 hospitals met standards for maternity care
- 56 hospitals met the new maternity care composite criteria (Table 1)
- 38 additional hospitals met the historic honor roll criteria by meeting or exceeding the statewide C-section target for low-risk births among first time pregnant persons (Table 2)
“As an Obstetrician Gynecologist, I congratulate these hospitals and clinicians for their excellent work to provide high quality, safe care to laboring persons and babies, especially those hospitals meeting the new maternity care honor roll composite and showing excellence in multiple areas of care,” said California Surgeon General Dr. Diana Ramos.
“2024 is a transition year in the Maternity Care Honor Roll program so we are celebrating hospitals who meet both the new and historic honor roll criteria,” said Bruce Spurlock, MD, Executive Director of Cal Hospital Compare.
Table 1: Honor roll hospitals meeting the new maternity care composite:
| Adventist Health Clear Lake | Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center |
| Alta Bates Summit Medical Center – Alta Bates Campus | Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center |
| Arrowhead Regional Medical Center | Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital |
| Banner Lassen Medical Center | Loma Linda University Medical Center – Murrieta |
| Barstow Community Hospital | Mad River Community Hospital |
| Barton Memorial Hospital | Marin Health Medical Center |
| Corona Regional Medical Center | Memorial Hospital Los Banos |
| Desert Regional Medical Center | Olive View – UCLA Medical Center |
| Dignity Health Mercy Hospital of Folsom | Palomar Medical Center Escondido |
| Dignity Health Mercy Medical Center Mount Shasta | PIH Health Hospital – Whittier |
| Dignity Health Mercy San Juan Medical Center | Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center Torrance |
| Dignity Health St. Bernardine Medical Center | Providence Queen of the Valley Medical Center |
| Dignity Health St. Elizabeth Community Hospital | Providence St. Jude Medical Center |
| Dignity Health Woodland Memorial Hospital | Rancho Springs Medical Center |
| Dominican Hospital | San Ramon Regional Medical Center |
| Eden Medical Center | Santa Paula Hospital |
| El Camino Hospital Los Gatos | Scripps Memorial Hospital – Encinitas |
| Emanuel Medical Center | Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego |
| Enloe Medical Center – Esplanade Campus | St. Louise Regional Hospital |
| Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital | St. Rose Hospital |
| Hemet Global Medical Center | Sutter Coast Hospital |
| Highland Hospital | Sutter Medical Center – Sacramento |
| Jacobs Medical Center | Tahoe Forest Hospital |
| Kaiser Foundation Hospital – San Marcos | UC San Diego Health’s Hillcrest medical campus |
| Kaiser Permanente Downey Medical Center | UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center |
| Kaiser Permanente Modesto Medical Center | Ventura County Medical Center |
| Kaiser Permanente Moreno Valley Medical Center | Watsonville Community Hospital |
| Kaiser Permanente Redwood City Medical Center | Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center |
For almost a decade, as part of Cal Hospital Compare’s Maternity Care Honor Roll, California has recognized hospitals that meet or exceed a C-section statewide target for low-risk, first births. While there continues to be substantial variation among individual hospital C-section rates, more and more hospitals are getting closer to this goal. Given C-sections are just one component of a hospital’s maternity services, Cal Hospital Compare established a new, more holistic methodology this year that builds off the historical recognition program, to recognize hospitals providing high quality maternity care services.
The composite measure identifies hospitals that meet or exceed performance standards for five maternal health metrics, including NTSV C-section rate, surgical site infection after a C-section, vaginal birth after a C-section (also known as a VBAC), episiotomy, and early elective deliveries prior to 39 weeks gestational age. These measures represent a cross section of maternal health metrics for birthing people undergoing a vaginal delivery or C-section, and babies.
The development of the 2024 maternity care honor roll methodology was a multistakeholder, collaborative effort that took many months; with input and approval from Cal Hospital Compare’s Technical Advisory Committee and Board of Directors. People representing hospital maternity care and quality services, maternal health innovation programs, patients, state agencies, funders, and purchasers came together to identify how to measure high quality maternity care in the hospital setting. The work group identified these elements as a critical framework for setting maternity care goals for 2024 and beyond:
- Build on the effort of meeting the statewide C-section target of 23.6% which aligns with Healthy People 2030 goals
- Include measures that reflect the healthcare experience for all birthing people and babies
- Align with existing or emerging statewide quality improvement initiatives
- For hospitals to be eligible for the honor roll, they must also submit data to California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative’s (CMQCC) Maternal Data Center.
“California is a national leader in maternity care partly because our hospitals leverage robust data to continually improve care and reduce inequities,” said Deirdre J. Lyell, MD, Co-chair and Co-principal Investigator of CMQCC. “CMQCC’s Maternal Data Center is used by medical teams that care for approximately 95% of women and pregnant people giving birth at California hospitals. Cal Hospital Compare’s Maternity Care Honor Roll showcases outstanding hospitals’ work and uncovers gaps in care that can subsequently be addressed through the use of data insights, quality improvement efforts, and most importantly, feedback from patients and families.”
At the advice of the Maternity Care Honor Roll workgroup, Technical Advisory Committee, and Board of Directors, future iterations of this honor roll may consider additional maternal health outcome and process metrics for both birthing people and babies, maternal morbidity and mortality rates by race/ethnicity, and metrics that represent social drivers of health.
“Improving the quality of maternity care in hospitals is an ongoing process,” said California Surgeon General Dr. Diana Ramos. “The Maternity Care Honor Roll through Cal Hospital Compare helps us to applaud those hospitals doing excellent work and show where improvement is needed. It’s a privilege to celebrate exemplary performance in the California healthcare system.”
“Cal Hospital Compare is proud to contribute to the statewide effort to improve maternity care and maternal outcomes by providing a more comprehensive way to evaluate performance for hospitals that offer these services,” said Bruce Spurlock, MD, Executive Director of Cal Hospital Compare. “We invite all California hospitals to use the new Maternity Care Honor Roll as a tool to evaluate performance and benchmark against other hospitals.”
To access the 2024 Maternity Care Honor Roll fact sheet, lists of all hospitals meeting the 2024 criteria, and methodology primer, visit the Cal Hospital Compare website.
For more than a decade, Cal Hospital Compare has been providing Californians with objective hospital performance ratings. Cal Hospital Compare is a nonprofit organization governed by a multistakeholder board that includes representatives of hospitals, purchasers, consumer groups, and health plans. It uses an open and collaborative process to aggregate public data and establish relevant measures and scoring. Cal Hospital Compare has three honor roll programs that recognize hospitals for their maternity care, patient safety, and work to address substance use disorder.
In 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom created the role of California Surgeon General to serve as a leading spokesperson on matters of public health and to drive solutions to some of the most pressing public health challenges in California. The Office of the California Surgeon General has three key priorities: reproductive and maternal health, mental health, and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress. In September 2024, Dr. Ramos launched Strong Start & Beyond, a movement to reduce maternal mortality in California.