MINT HILL, NC – Novant Health Mint Hill Medical Center is honored to have been selected by Newsweek Magazine as a Best Maternity Hospital for 2021.  The Mint Hill-based facility is one of only 217 hospitals in 36 states to receive the recognition.  Many of Mint Hill’s sister Novant hospitals have received the award in prior years, but the distinction is a first for Novant Mint Hill since it’s opening in 2018.

To select the Best Maternity Hospitals for 2021, Newsweek partnered with The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit organization that reports on the safety and quality performance of US health care facilities.  To make the list, hospitals must meet Leapfrog’s tough standards for excellence in five different measures of maternity care. Hospitals must also receive an A or B Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade in the fall of 2020 to be considered.  

Novant Mint Hill’s Women’s Center is “LDRP,” which means that mothers labor, deliver and recover in the same room instead of laboring and delivering in one room and then transferring to another for recovery.  “It’s considered best practice because it promotes continuity of care,” says Nurse Manager Robin Greelish.  “Typically the LDR suites are more like a home, so it’s more cozy and comfortable, less sterile and hospital-like.”

Composed of just 15 rooms, Novant Mint Hill’s maternity ward is relatively small.  It includes 8 LDRP suites, in addition to triage rooms, observation rooms and nursery space for babies who need extra care.  In fact, one of the things that sets Novant Mint Hill apart – and places it in high demand among expecting mothers – is its ability to provide state-of-the-art care in a smaller setting.

“We’re a part of Novant, so we have access to all the latest and greatest things,” says Greelish, “but we’re able to deliver that care in a very small-town, personalized, homey type of environment. We don’t have a large parking deck that you have to navigate; it’s not hard to get to or navigate the hospital. You get all of the benefits of a big hospital without all of the headaches.” 

Obviously Novant Mint Hill performs well in all five metrics The Leapfrog Group uses to select the Best Maternity Hospitals, but it’s more than those numbers that make it one of the best hospitals at which to deliver.  “The Best Maternity Hospital is an award that’s based on quality and safety metrics, but I don’t think that you have high quality and high safety standards without the people,” says Greelish.

An integral part of the personalized care Novant Mint Hill provides is Mint Hill OB/GYN.  Anyone can deliver at Novant Mint Hill, but Mint Hill OB/GYN is the only group of physicians that delivers there.  “The physician’s office is right here on campus, upstairs in the physician’s plaza” says Chief Nursing Officer Tammy Brooks.  “Women can come to their appointments, get their mammogram, and then they come back to this exact same location to deliver their baby, so they get very comfortable with everything here.”

“Mint Hill Medical Center and Mint Hill OB/GYN have a great symbiotic relationship,” says Doctor Chandler, Mint Hill OB/GYN Lead Physician.  “Mint Hill OB is the only practice offering obstetrics and traditional gynecological services at Mint Hill Medical Center. With its main office in the physician plaza, Mint Hill OB works closely with Mint Hill Medical Center. Mint Hill OB also collaborates with breast imaging  and gynecology to help facilitate many women’s services in a one-stop destination.”

Providing excellent care is, of course, a team effort.  “The nurses are very good about establishing a working relationship with the mom,” says Greelish.  “Some people come in with a very detailed birth plan. They go through that with them they try to honor all their wishes.  I think it’s really all about personalized care from the physicians to the nurses to the scrub techs to the catering associates and the housekeepers.  We also consistently have the same lactation consultant.”

For the team at Novant Mint Hill, being named a Best Maternity Hospital for 2021 validates all the hard work that has gone into building the practice in just under three years.  “When we were planning the hospital, they were projecting it to be year three or four before we would deliver 400 babies,” says Brooks, “and we celebrated our 1000th birth in December.  So really in just over two years we did that, we delivered 1000 babies.”

Both Brooks and Greelish attribute this incredible rate of growth to the excellent standard of care patients receive at Novant Mint Hill.  “I think it goes back to the experience that people have when they’re here,” says Greelish.  “They’ll tell ten people, and then those people will talk about it and then word gets out in the community.  Even though we’ve only been here two and a half years, we’ve had patients who’ve had two and three babies here.”

“We are a small, close-knit, family-like unit that is very experienced,” adds Chandler.  “We collect and collaborate with all of our diverse sets of skills and experience to mesh together a dynamic team to take excellent care of our patients.”

On Thursday, May 13, Novant hosted a recognition breakfast for all the people who contributed to the success of Mint Hill’s Women’s Center.  “We’re just celebrating the team that made this happen,” says Greelish.  “People from the hospital’s leadership to our service line have been invited to attend just as a way to recognize them and say thank you for all the work that went into achieving this award.”

“At Novant Health Mint Hill Medical Center we are honored to be recognized as one of the nation’s Best Maternity Hospitals,” says Senior Director of Women’s Health Stephanie Appling.  “We are thankful we have dedicated team members and excellent physicians who are dedicated to quality care and delivering a remarkable experience.”

“I am proud to work with some amazing people here and know that they are great advocates for women and their families,” says Chandler.  “I’m excited for them to see that their hard work and passion is recognized from an outside, impartial source.”

“I am so proud to have watched the journey of this team providing Remarkable care to their patients since the hospital opened October 1, 2018,” says Novant Health Mint Hill Medical Center President Joy Greear.  “There is great teamwork with the nurses, doctors, anesthesiologists, neonatal nurse practitioner, and all other ancillary services and our patients are in great hands. We are proud to share this recognition with the Mint Hill community so they may take pride in knowing these and other great services are available in their own backyard. Congratulations to the entire Women’s Services team! 

For more information about Mint Hill OB/GYN, visit https://www.nhminthillobgyn.org/.  For more information on Novant Mint Hill Medical Center’s Women’s Center, visit https://www.novanthealth.org/mint-hill-medical-center/services/womens-health.aspx.