Webinar - Understanding Our Past to Build an Equitable Future - Our Path to an Alongside Unit

Women & Infants Hospital – an academic tertiary-care facility handling 8,500 annual births – established Rhode Island’s only state-approved hospital birth center in 1986. Over time, as utilization declined, senior midwives conducted a 35-year historical and SWOT analysis to identify internal and systemic barriers to physiologic birth. To ensure designated birth center space was prioritized in an upcoming Labor & Delivery redesign, leadership convened a multi-stakeholder team using creative problem-solving principles to envision a sustainable, equitable care model.

This presentation explores how the midwives successfully earned unanimous stakeholder support for Rhode Island’s first CABC-accredited Alongside Midwifery Unit (AMU) as part of a hospital redesign. Presenter Julie Knutson, DNP, CNM, WHNP, IBCLC, shares practical, evidence-based strategies for driving system-level change, protecting physiologic birth space, addressing health disparities, and creating interdisciplinary training opportunities. 

Panelist: Julie Knutson, DNP, CNM, WHNP, IBCLC

Presented live on 12.14.22.