Since Oct. 2008, when the OB/GYN Hospitalists of Loudoun opened to serve low income uninsured women, the staff of four physicians, one nurse midwife and their clinical and administrative support, has overseen the deliveries of more than 1,500 babies.

"Time for a party," said Cindy O’Hara, RN, Clinical Manager and liaison for OB Community Services at Inova Loudoun Hospital. On Oct. 20, staff invited their “graduates” and supporters in for a third anniversary celebration.

Before the clinic opened, a pregnant woman might – or might not – have been getting prenatal care from the Loudoun Health Department. She was very likely to show up at the emergency room at the Lansdowne hospital nine centimeters dilated. An ER physician with training in delivery might or might not be on duty and the doctors trained in delivering babies really don’t like meeting a patient for the first time when the baby is about to arrive.

“We call those ‘unattended’ deliveries,” said Inova Loudoun Hospital CEO Randy Kelley. “That’s when a baby is delivered by someone other than their physician. This was designed to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

The hospital pays most of the costs of the program; the Health Department contributes the money it would have received had it continued to be the primary care provider for low income uninsured women.

The idea for the program started to grow back in 2006, Kelley said, when “we needed to develop something to manage the prenatal aspect of the pregnancy, needed to get advanced prenatal care to babies before the delivery day.”

The program reaches thousands of patients, Kelley said, and prenatal care is a “huge benefit. It makes such a difference for how their lives start if they get the right prenatal care.”

While the primary benefit of the program is social, Kelley said, there are economic benefits as well. The costs of caring for a baby in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit after a premature or traumatic delivery, which might have been avoided with proper prenatal care and guidance, go over six figures in the blink of an eye.

Maybe only two of those 1,500 babies born under the care and guidance of the hospitalist program might have gone that route, but the savings are considerably more than the costs of providing prenatal care to those who can’t afford it.

Medical Director Dr. Jodie Horton had been in private practice four years when this opportunity came up. It sounded too good to be true, she said, and she loves the job. “Our patients are so appreciative.”

Paola Cruz is a case in point, Horton said, and pointed to Cruz and her 17-month old daughter Gabriella.

“She wrote us after we delivered her baby girl,” Horton said. “It is the nicest letter I ever received and I have it in my office at home. I had never received anything like that before.”

Dr. Lami Jeffrey-Coker, Dr. Katherine Reiff Kula, Dr. Steven Smith, Nurse/Midwife Cheelee Loenj and several licensed nurse practitioners round out the medical staff. Each physician puts in on average eight 24-hour shifts per month. They see patients five days a week in the medical office building rooms attached to the hospital, and the ER is never without a trained OB/GYN physician on duty.

The OB/GYN Hospitalist Program coordinates with the Health Department, INMED Mothernet Loudoun, Early Head Start and the Community Health Center to reach potential patients, O’Hara said.

Virginia Commerce Bank’s eight local branches raised the money to buy and donate 24,000 diapers to be distributed wherever they are needed in Loudoun and Fairfax. A table bearing 1,500 newborn size diapers was the centerpiece for the program’s third anniversary.

“Our goal is healthy moms and healthy kids,” CEO Kelley said.

For more information call the OB/GYN Hospitalists of Loudoun at 703-858-810.