CHEER Hospital of the Week: Memorial Hospital at Gulfport!

Congratulations to Memorial Hospital at Gulfport (MHG) on their July 2020 Baby-Friendly designation! This metro hospital records an average of 1400 births per year and operates a level III NICU. MHG joined CHAMPS in 2015 and began to pursue Baby-Friendly designation in January 2017. Since then, the staff has worked tirelessly towards accomplishing this award.

“We feel so much pride in achieving the Baby Friendly Designation. We are excited and more confident in our care of moms and babies.” – Amy Haulsee, RN, BSN, Director of Women & Children’s Services at MHG.
 
The MHG team began working on improving some of their practices, like skin-to-skin, soon after they joined CHAMPS. However, they did not officially begin the Baby-Friendly journey until 2017. When asked about their journey to designation, Amy shared that their greatest success was the positive feedback from patients, who had previously delivered at MHG, about how much better they liked the Baby-Friendly practices. Furthermore, Amy shared that becoming baby-friendly has impacted their patient care positively. “Patients have more of a voice and express their satisfaction. It has given our patients confidence as well as our staff having a better understanding of how to help moms and babies, “she said. She also discussed their challenges with documentation and stated that it was a learning process. “We did learn so much, and had to make changes in the electronic record as we learned how we needed to document practices.”

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The Baby Friendly CHAMPions of Memorial Hospital Gulfport

Amy would like to recognize the entire MHG team for working so well together and getting things done. She also wants to thank Laura Burnham from CHAMPS, whom she said was with them all the way and “really gave great support and guidance”. Now that they are designated, the MHG team plans to refresh staff education and train new employees upon hire. They hope to stay current on the Baby-Friendly practices and resume their audits in 2021.

​Congratulations to Memorial Hospital at Gulfport, thank you for your commitment to learning and to providing the best care for your patients!

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