Bereavement-Ready Care does not invent a new definition of good care. It takes the guidance the field already trusts and organizes it into a measurable, institution-level standard, so that what excellent practice recommends becomes something a hospital can demonstrate, verify, and sustain.
The development approach, the frameworks it draws on, and how the standard is kept current.
The standard was developed by synthesizing established, published frameworks for perinatal and infant bereavement care into eight domains of institutional readiness. It is grounded in clinical practice at the bedside, in interdisciplinary care spanning nursing, chaplaincy, and social work, and in the lived experience of families who have navigated pregnancy and infant loss. That lived experience is integrated into the development and the ongoing stewardship of the standard, not consulted once and set aside.
The standard draws on and aligns with the frameworks the field already relies on:
It is further informed by the research landscape: documented variability in care between institutions, the links between institutional care and complicated grief and perinatal PTSD, clinician burnout and secondary traumatic stress, and the patient-experience and reimbursement implications of care at the time of loss.
Because the standard organizes existing guidance rather than replacing it, the work hospitals have already done counts. Established curricula such as RTS, and policies aligned with PLIDA and ACOG guidance, satisfy the relevant domains directly. The standard adds the institutional layer that training and policy alone do not provide: verification that a hospital delivers consistently, across every shift, every unit, and every staff transition.
A domain-by-domain crosswalk to these source frameworks shows exactly how much of the standard a hospital already meets.
A standard is maintained, not finished. The Bereavement-Ready Care™ Standard is held and revised by the Independent Standards Review Board, which keeps it aligned with current evidence and practice.
A structured appraisal of the standard, using a recognized guideline-appraisal instrument, is planned as a founding-cohort milestone and will be led by an independent reviewer. Establishing the standard openly, and appraising it rigorously, is part of building it to last.