Obstetrician and nurse-midwife collaboration: successful public health and private practice partnership.

Objective: To evaluate maternal and neonatal outcomes of collaborative maternity care for a socioeconomically diverse patient population in a California community hospital.

Methods: Collaborative practice structure and clinical guidelines were analyzed, as were de-identified electronic medical records for all primiparous women who delivered term singletons between 2000 and 2010 (N=4,426). Demographics, care processes, and perinatal outcomes were compared among women seen prenatally in a private collaborative practice compared with a Federally Qualified Health Center prenatal clinic run by nurse-midwives.