Soins maternels intensifs (Maternal Intensive Care) en Belgique - KCE

78 Maternal Intensive Care in Belgium KCE Reports 94
Key messages
• Applying the Delphi method, an expert group listed the clinical conditions
which should be treated in MIC-beds. Women identified as suffering from at
least one of such conditions in the database were defined as “intermediate
care women”. Women without such conditions were labelled “standard care
women”. For a number of clinical conditions, no consensus was reached as
regards the adequate level of care. Women reported as suffering from such
conditions were labelled as “grey zone women”.
• The list of conditions was translated into ICD-9 codes. Categorization of
women used a data extraction algorithm. 9.6 % and 33.7% of women were
classified “intermediate care” and “grey zone”, respectively.
Moreover, the correlation between a theoretical and empirical score of MIC
orientation by hospital was tested, and found significant.
• The expert list was assessed by comparing patient and health service
characteristics between the groups. “Intermediate care women” had a
lower socio-economic status, a higher c-section rate, a longer hospital stay,
more stillborns, more twins, and more preterm deliveries.