Advocacy in Action: Lamaze Education as Part of High Value Maternity Care

Dr. Debra Bingham has over 30 years’ experience in Maternal Child Health Nursing, a master's degree in perinatal nursing from Columbia University, and a doctorate in Public Health from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Most of Debra's career has been spent working in hospital leadership positions at the front lines of healthcare. For example, she has held the positions of Director of Maternal Child Health Nursing for 2 union hospitals in New York City, Manager of a large referral Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in New York City, a stand-alone birthing center in a small community hospital, and a fetal evaluation unit.

Debra has expertise in Quality Improvement (QI), health care safety, and implementation. Her focus is on how to improve front-line clinician’s quality improvement implementation effectiveness. Dr. Bingham has developed and led several QI inter-disciplinary initiatives designed to improve the safety of healthcare. She is an author of numerous articles published in peer reviewed journals and of implementation toolkits. Dr. Bingham was the first Executive Director of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative where she helped form the collaborative and the California Pregnancy-Associated Mortality Review (CA-PAMR) committee, co-authored the Obstetric Hemorrhage Toolkit and the Elimination of Elective Deliveries Prior to 39 Weeks Toolkit, and launched the first CA-Obstetric Hemorrhage Multi-Hospital Collaborative. Debra was the Vice President of Research, Education, and Practice for the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) where she led the development and launch of the Postpartum Hemorrhage Project, the Women’s Health and Perinatal Nursing Care Quality Measures, the Maternal Fetal Triage Index, and the #POSTBIRTH Warning Signs program. Debra was the Vice-Chair and Chair of the Council in Patient Safety in Women’s Healthcare (a volunteer organization comprised of representatives from 17 professional organizations). Debra is a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator and former Chair of Lamaze International's Institute for Safe and Healthy Births.