Parkland Hospital in Dallas delivers almost 13,000 babies every year. It is one of the largest baby delivery centers in the country. Almost all of the mothers are low-income minorities. More than three-fourths are Hispanic, and I suspect that a great many of those are undocumented. This is a group researchers call “at risk.” Yet among those who go through the prenatal program, infant mortality is half what it is for similar populations elsewhere.
The Parkland baby delivery program has been underway for several decades, and I wrote about it in Priceless. It involves extensive pre-natal and post-natal care provided by nurses. Most deliveries are done by midwives, rather than obstetricians.
Although the hospital does not release the figures, I suspect that this nonprofit institution actually makes a “profit” on the delivery of babies by piecing together various sources of government funding, minimizing the cost of personnel, and avoiding costly complications that lead to infant and maternal death.
Parkland’s delivery program for babies is an example of what Harvard University professor Regina Herzlinger calls a “focused factory.” These are places where the providers become really good at providing high-quality, efficient care. There would be a lot more Parklands around if we changed the way the health care safety net operates. (see related article, here)
John C. Goodman, Ph.D. (johngoodman@goodmaninstitute.org) is co-publisher of Health Care News and president and founder of the Goodman Institute for Public Policy Research. A version of this article appeared in Forbes on November 26, 2023. Reprinted with permission.
