Temple Health is beginning inpatient services, including maternity, labor & delivery and neonatal ICU at the new Temple Women & Families Hospital on Wednesday, September 3. Labor & delivery will no longer occur at Temple University Hospital on Broad and Ontario Streets after Wednesday, September 3 at 8am. Beginning September 3 at 8am, all childbirth services will take place at Temple Women & Families Hospital, which is located at 1331 East Wyoming Avenue on the corner of Castor and Wyoming Avenues. The newly opened inpatient areas of Temple Women & Families Hospital include a premier neonatal ICU and family-focused labor and delivery and private post-partum patient rooms with accommodations for partners and support people designed to make everyone feel at home.
“The opening of Temple Women & Families Hospital is a defining moment for Temple Health,” said Abhi Rastogi, MBA, MIS, Executive Vice President of Temple Health and President and CEO of Temple University Hospital Inc. “We know that welcoming your baby into the world is one of the most special moments of your life and that’s why we’ve created a maternity experience that’s centered around women. We’ve thoughtfully designed every aspect of the maternity stay to prioritize comfort, privacy, and a deeply supportive experience—for women and their loved ones.”
The new inpatient services at Temple Women & Families will add to the broad array of outpatient services already available at the hospital, including gynecology, obstetrics, family medicine, pediatrics, operating rooms focused on same-day surgeries, X-ray, and CT/MRI with further opportunities for expansion based on community need.
“Temple Women & Families Hospital is the only hospital dedicated to women and babies in the Philadelphia region and we are committed to providing comprehensive healthcare services in an accessible, approachable setting,” said Sharon Kurfuerst, EdD, OTR/L, FACHE, Executive Director of Temple Women & Families. “Our hospital offers a variety of preventative and specialized medical services tailored to the needs of women and families at all stages of life. With comprehensive services in one convenient and comfortable setting, Temple Women & Families is leading better access to quality care–putting women and family health above all.”
Innovative Technology and Programs to Improve Outcomes and Enhance Services
Temple Health will be leveraging innovative technology at Temple Women & Families to improve outcomes. Temple developed a maternal health outcomes dashboard to study its maternal health rates, trends and key factors driving inequities across different groups. This data-driven resource guides medical record-based, risk-reducing interventions. In addition, Temple Health will use risk-based algorithms to identify potential risk factors during labor to address and prevent negative outcomes for both mom and baby. These Epic-based algorithms will send out alerts to the care team in real time so they can make timely and informed care decisions.
Temple Women & Families will also offer an integrated OB behavioral health program. Temple received a grant from the William Penn Foundation to support the launch of The Perinatal Collaborative Behavioral Health Care Program (PCBH) at Temple Women & Families. PCBH will address the significant delays that pregnant and postpartum patients in North Philadelphia face in recognizing behavioral health symptoms due to limited behavioral health integration in clinical care settings. PCBH will improve behavioral health outcomes, expand access to behavioral health care, promote holistic and peer support services, and enhance continuity of care for pregnant and postpartum patients. The PCBH team will be embedded within the Temple Women and Families campus and will include bilingual Licensed Clinical Social Worker care managers, peer support workers, and psychiatrists. This multidisciplinary approach will ensure that patients have access to comprehensive care that addresses both their physical and mental health needs throughout their pregnancy and postpartum periods.
Finally, a novel Community Health Worker-based program called the Temple Mama Model will pair Temple’s most vulnerable pregnant patients with a perinatal Community Health Worker from their first OB appointment until one year postpartum. The Community Health Worker will provide healthcare navigation, proactively address missed appointments, and offer connections to social determinants of health programming all while cultivating trust and empowerment.