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Finger Lakes Regional Perinatal Program

URMC / Finger Lakes Regional Perinatal Program / Regional Perinatal Center

Regional Perinatal Center

The Finger Lakes Regional Perinatal Center at Strong Memorial Hospital provides comprehensive perinatal services to support regional hospitals. These services include 24-hour neonatal and obstetrical consultation, coordination of maternal and neonatal transports to the Regional Perinatal Center (RPC), participation in the regional Perinatal Forum, and outreach support visits to all affiliate hospitals. In addition, the RPC is responsible for providing support to hospital users of the Statewide Perinatal Data System (SPDS). This includes ongoing technical assistance and coordination of SPDS-focused committees and work groups.

Requirements

New York State's system of regionalized perinatal services includes a hierarchy of four levels of perinatal care provided by the hospitals within a region and led by a Regional Perinatal Center (RPC).

The regional system is led by an RPC that is capable of providing all the services and expertise required by the most acutely sick or at-risk pregnant women and newborns. The concentration of high-risk patients makes it possible to enhance and maintain the level of expertise in the care of high-risk obstetric and neonatal patients, as well as justify the substantial expense required to establish and maintain neonatal intensive care units and attending-level subspecialty consultation. RPCs provide or coordinate maternal-fetal and newborn transfers of high-risk patients from their affiliate hospitals to the RPC, and are responsible for support, education, consultation and improvements in the quality of care in the affiliate hospitals within their region.

The four levels of perinatal care within the regionalization system vary by the types of patients that are treated, availability of sub-specialty consultation, qualifications of staff, types of equipment available and volume of high-risk perinatal patients treated. Besides the RPC, there are three other levels of care:

  • Level I hospitals provide care to normal and low-risk pregnant women and newborns, and they do not operate neonatal intensive care units (NICU);
  • Level II hospitals provide care to women and newborns at moderate risk and do operate NICUs;
  • Level III hospitals care for patients requiring increasingly complex care and operate NICUs.
  • Level IV - Not all states have Level IV designations. In NYS, a Level IV means a Level III with regional responsibilities, although, it often connotes the presence of highly specialized services that may not be available at other Level III NICUs (i.e., pediatric cardiac surgery, ECMO, etc.).

Outreach Meeting Schedule 2023

  • Outreach Schedule:

    • FF Thompson   Monday September 18, 2023 7:00am - 9:00am

    • Unity    Wednesday October 4, 2023    7:30am - 8:30am

    • Noyes    Tuesday October 17, 2023   0800a – 1000a

    • Highland    Thursday November 2, 2023    0730a – 0830a

    • RGH    Thursday November 30, 2023     0730a – 0830a

    • Newark-Wayne    TBD

    • Arnot & Corning     TBD

Requirements and responsibilities with regard to designations

Designation-Regultations-2005

 

The NYS Perinatal Designation/Regionalization regulations are undergoing revision, with possible changes in criteria for hospital levels, how transfers between non-regional Perinatal Center (RCP) hospitals are handled, RPC oversight of affiliate hospital Quality Assurance processes, frequency of perinatal outreach visits, and RCP educational requirements.  There will be a new section on Midwifery Birthing Centers.  None of these possible changes have been finalized, and there is not a projected date yet as to when they will be.