Wow.
As part of an effort to fight childhood obesity, Kaiser Permanente, which according to their press release "cares for more moms and babies than any other integrated health care system" in the U.S. (96,000 births in 2010) announced a huge commitment to promoting breastfeeding yesterday.
Kaiser announced that:
- All of its 29 hosptials will either be Baby Friendly or use the exclusive breastfeeding Joint Commission performance measure by 2013. 13 Kaiser hospitals already are Baby Friendly.
- It will establish a system-wide performance improvement program focused on evidence-based hospital breastfeeding practices
- It will develop and make publicly available a hospital breastfeeding practices guide for use by other systems
- It will include rates of exclusive breastfeeding at discharge as a core quality measure, to be reviewed quarterly
In a year of a lot of good news, this one ranks right up there.
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