Cleveland Clinic Hillcrest Hospital in Mayfield Heights has become the first hospital in Ohio to earn TeamBirth site recognition, a designation tied to an evidence-based model of care that uses structured communication and shared decision-making throughout labor and delivery. The recognition came from Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation, and covers Hillcrest's entire maternity service, where all patients are now expected to take part in TeamBirth huddles.
According to Cleveland.com, TeamBirth brings together the person giving birth, their support people, and their care team, including staff from the emergency department, labor and delivery, and postpartum units, to discuss care plans and participate in decisions together. Monique Katsuki said clear communication can make a lasting difference in families' care experiences, per the outlet's report. Hillcrest instituted TeamBirth as its standard of care in June 2024, and the hospital now encourages patients to request a huddle any time they have questions or concerns.
A Model Built On Structured Huddles
Ariadne Labs instituted TeamBirth in 2020, and the framework has since been implemented in more than 300 hospitals nationwide, the outlet's report notes. The model centers on bedside whiteboards and scheduled care huddles, and in Ariadne Labs' original pilot trial across four U.S. hospitals, 97% of patients reported having the exact role they wanted in their childbirth decisions, while 90% of nurses, midwives, and obstetricians said they would recommend the model to other birthing units, according to Ariadne Labs. A 2022 study available through the National Institutes of Health's PubMed Central defines labor huddles as discussions involving the full care team, including the patient, nurse and delivering provider, to review labor preferences and make shared decisions.
Hillcrest's own rollout followed an earlier pilot at Cleveland Clinic Akron General, which began in late 2022 as one of four national pilot sites for the model. After that pilot launched, Akron General's patient satisfaction score for “nurses listen carefully to you” rose 10.56% in the first quarter of 2023, reaching 90.48%, per Cleveland Clinic. Building on that result, Cleveland Clinic expanded TeamBirth to labor and delivery units at its main campus, Fairview Hospital, and Hillcrest Hospital in July 2024.
Hillcrest's Maternity Services
Hillcrest offers low-intervention birthing suites and midwifery services, and its care teams include physicians, midwives, nurses, and lactation consultants, according to Cleveland.com's report. The hospital also has a Level III neonatal intensive care unit providing specialized monitoring and treatment for newborns requiring advanced support, along with an OB emergency department, opened in 2021, that offers immediate evaluation for pregnancy-related concerns at any time of day. Cleveland Clinic Hillcrest Hospital has also been named a high-performing hospital on U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals for Maternity Care list, the outlet reports.
The TeamBirth site designation reflects a hospital's commitment to multidisciplinary, high-quality, compassionate care, per the same report. Hillcrest's family-centered approach is meant to give expectant parents options aligned with their own preferences throughout the birthing process.
Why Northeast Ohio Hospitals Are Racing To Adopt Shared Decision-Making
Hillcrest's recognition arrives as regional hospital systems have moved in parallel to adopt the same framework. In May 2025, rival network University Hospitals launched TeamBirth across all five of its birthing centers in Northeast Ohio, including UH MacDonald Women's Hospital at Cleveland Medical Center, UH Ahuja, UH Geauga, UH St. John, and UH TriPoint, according to University Hospitals, establishing the model as a network-wide standard of care.
The push toward structured communication in delivery rooms comes against a stark backdrop of preventable maternal deaths in Ohio. A report released in May 2026 by the Ohio Department of Children and Youth found that 88% of the 140 pregnancy-associated deaths recorded in Ohio during 2021 were determined by medical reviewers to be preventable. That same 2021 data showed Black women in Ohio experienced a pregnancy-related mortality ratio of 74.9 per 100,000 live births compared to 23.4 for white women, making Black mothers more than three times as likely to die from pregnancy complications, according to the Ohio Department of Children and Youth. Ohio's overall pregnancy-related mortality ratio stood at 36.9 per 100,000 live births that year. According to the Ohio Department of Health, non-Hispanic Black women in Ohio are more than 2.5 times as likely to die from a pregnancy-related death as non-Hispanic white women.
Research suggests communication breakdowns are central to that problem. A Joint Commission study cited by Dartmouth Health found that breakdowns in communication and teamwork between care providers and patients account for up to 90% of preventable injuries during childbirth in the United States. An Ariadne Labs study published in March 2026, analyzing survey data from more than 6,500 patients across 31 Oklahoma hospitals, found that participation in TeamBirth huddles significantly increased patient trust and autonomy scores during childbirth across all racial and ethnic groups, drawing on responses collected between 2022 and 2024. A 2022 qualitative study available through the National Institutes of Health's PubMed Central says shared decision-making may improve communication, teamwork, patient experience, respectful maternity care and safety during childbirth.
Broader Efforts To Address Maternal Health Disparities
Structured huddles are one piece of a wider set of responses to Ohio's maternal mortality crisis. In May 2024, Ohio federal lawmakers co-introduced and supported the federal Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, a package of 13 legislative measures designed to fund maternal mental health programs, nutrition support, and enhanced data collection to curb maternal mortality, according to the U.S. House of Representatives. Separately, the Ohio Perinatal Quality Improvement Collaborative leads a statewide initiative in partnership with the Ohio Department of Health targeting perinatal hypertension, identifying high blood pressure as a leading preventable cause of severe maternal morbidity in Ohio hospitals.
Whether these communication-focused reforms will translate into measurable, long-term drops in severe maternal morbidity and complication rates across Ohio hospitals remains an open question that researchers and health officials continue to track. For now, Hillcrest's TeamBirth recognition marks a concrete local step in a much larger statewide effort to make childbirth safer and more equitable.
