At WAPC, we recognize the vital role that Risk-Appropriate Care (RAC) plays in ensuring the best possible health outcomes for pregnant people and newborns. This approach ensures that individuals receive care at the right place and at the right time, reducing risks and improving overall health and well-being.

Why Risk-Appropriate Care Matters

Risk-appropriate care is important at every level of healthcare – from individual patient care and hospital operations to community health initiatives and the broader healthcare system. Understanding how these levels interact and support each other is essential to delivering and improving care:

• For individuals, RAC ensures that regardless of geographic location, insurance status, race/ethnicity, or medical complexity that every individual has the same ability to access safe, high-quality, and equitable care needed to ensure the best outcomes for themselves and their families.
• For hospitals, RAC enhances how they operate. Increased opportunities for training, understanding the various levels of care needed, and improving communication between hospitals are essential to ensuring every patient is served with appropriate, high-quality care.
• In communities, RAC brings necessary resources that can improve health outcomes, particularly to underserved and systemically under-resourced areas. RAC assesses and aims to improve access to quality care to communities across the state.
• Systemically, RAC identifies gaps and opportunities for improvement in our healthcare systems and works alongside hospital systems to find strategic ways to address them.