BACKGROUND Although antenatal care coverage in Ghana is high, there exist gaps in the continued use of maternity care, especially utilization of skilled assistance during delivery. Many pregnant women seek care from different sources aside the formal health sector. This is due to negative perceptions resulting from poor service quality experiences in health facilities. Moreover, the socio-cultu...

In an effort to reduce infant and maternal morbidity and mortality in developing countries, the World Health Organization has promoted the training of traditional birth attendants (midwives) and their incorporation into the formal health care system. In this paper, we examine several aspects of the integration of traditional and biomedical maternity care that are likely to reflect the quality o...

Many benefits could be gained from regional health information sharing. It is important to identify the needs for it from different viewpoints; health managers, health providers, citizens, etc. Finnish and Chinese partners are studying health information sharing in a pilot project in Pudong, Shanghai, using maternity care pathway as a case. This paper describes the pathway using an activity-dri...

BACKGROUND There is little known about women's concurrent use of conventional and complementary health care during pregnancy, particularly consultation patterns with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). This study examines health service utilisation among pregnant women including consultations with obstetricians, midwives, general practitioners (GPs) and CAM practitioners. METHODS A ...

BACKGROUND In 2009 the Australian government announced a major program of reform with the move to primary maternity care. The reform agenda represents a dramatic change to maternity care provision in a society that has embraced technology across all aspects of life including childbirth. METHODS A critical discourse analysis of selected submissions in the consultation process to the national r...

Meaningful use is a multidimensional concept that incorporates complex processes; workflow; interoperability; decision support; performance evaluation; and quality improvement. Meaningful use is congruent with the overall vision for information management in New Zealand. Health practitioners interface with patient information at many levels, and are pivotal to meaningful use at the interface be...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to find out what aspects of their parenthood parents revealed, and how they expressed their thoughts concerning maternity care services on an online communication forum. BACKGROUND The 'Information Society' offers a growing variety of health services as part of public primary health care via the internet. Little is known about the contents produced online b...