Digital Health Innovations, Tools, and Resources to Support Helping Babies Survive Programs

Abstract

The Helping Babies Survive (HBS) initiative features a suite of evidence-based curricula and simulation-based training programs designed to provide health workers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with the knowledge, skills, and competencies to prevent, recognize, and manage leading causes of newborn morbidity and mortality. Global scale-up of HBS initiatives has been rapid. As HBS initiatives rolled out across LMIC settings, numerous bottlenecks, gaps, and barriers to the effective, consistent dissemination and implementation of the programs, across both the pre- and in-service continuums, emerged. Within the first decade of expansive scale-up of HBS programs, mobile phone ownership and access to cellular networks have also concomitantly surged in LMICs. In this article, we describe a number of HBS digital health innovations and resources that have been developed from 2010 to 2020 to support education and training, data collection for monitoring and evaluation, clinical decision support, and quality improvement. Helping Babies Survive partners and stakeholders can potentially integrate the described digital tools with HBS dissemination and implementation efforts in a myriad of ways to support low-dose high-frequency skills practice, in-person refresher courses, continuing medical and nursing education, on-the-job training, or peer-to-peer learning, and strengthen data collection for key newborn care and quality improvement indicators and outcomes. Thoughtful integration of purpose-built digital health tools, innovations, and resources may assist HBS practitioners to more effectively disseminate and implement newborn care programs in LMICs, and facilitate progress toward the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal health goals, targets, and objectives.

Effect of Training Healthcare Providers in Helping Babies Breathe Program on Neonatal Mortality Rates

“…It is important that HBB training in the future should utilize other technologies such as telesimulation that allows facilitators to continue training and mentoring while remote from the targeted facility. Therefore, digital platforms could reinforce training in LMIC and should be a future initiative for training in rural provinces ( 20 ). Simulation by remote facilitation or telesimulation has been shown to be feasible for neonatal resuscitation training and is associated with significant improvements in knowledge and performance ( 21 , 22 ).…”

Pediatric Critical Care in Resource Limited Settings—Lessening the Gap Through Ongoing Collaboration, Advancement in Research and Technological Innovations

“…An example of this being the rapidly developed, and quickly distributed, WHO Severe Acute Respiratory Infection Training materials ( 41 , 42 ). Mobile phones apps of contextualized guidelines increase access to information when needed for decision support ( 43 , 44 ). Innovative refresher low-dose high frequency training using mobile virtual reality simulation has been successfully piloted in LMIC for neonatal resuscitation including the recently released Essential Newborn Care Now ( 45 , 46 ).…”

Improving Newborn Resuscitation by Making Every Birth a Learning Event

“…These algorithms promote memorization and a shared mental model during training [ 42 ]. After training, the algorithms are widely accessible to providers as a clinical reference in the form of printed posters, pocket guides, or increasingly digital versions (particularly in mobile health applications) [ 43 ]. In addition to serving as a resource before the point of care, these algorithms have been explored as clinical decision support tools [ 44 ].…”

“…In low-resource settings, in which few expert coaches in newborn resuscitation are available, automated guidance is a particularly attractive alternative strategy. While we found many automated tools supporting training in HBB, only two are designed to provide clinical decision support during a resuscitation [ 43 ]. NeoTap is a smartphone application that supports heart-rate assessments via auscultation by screen-tapping in order to eliminate the need for mental calculations of heart rate; it also includes an audio and visual pacer to support ventilation cadence.…”