The Safe Delivery App featured in new film by Apple
On June 13th, the tech giant Apple kicked off its biggest software event of the year, the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). The WWDC gathers 5000 app makers, software developers and other tech partners in San Francisco.
The Safe Delivery App has been selected by Apple as one of the apps to be featured in a film at WWDC about the power and potential of apps. The film was shown during Apple CEO Tim Cook’s opening key note session of the conference.
A mobile phone revolution is sweeping across the world – not least in developing countries: There are almost 7 billion mobile cellular subscriptions in the world and 2,7 billion people have access to the Internet. The Safe Delivery App was featured in Apple’s film as an example of how mobile technology can be used to address one of the largest health inequalities in the world: maternal mortality.
Each year, 300,000 women and 5 million newborns die due to causes related to pregnancy and childbirth, and 99 % of the deaths take place in developing countries. The vast majority of these deaths can be prevented by the presence of a skilled birth attendant, who is able to provide emergency care.
The Safe Delivery App features animated instruction videos that teach health workers life-saving skills during pregnancy and childbirth, e.g. how to stop a woman’s bleeding after birth or how to resuscitate a newborn. In Apple’s film, the app is shown being used at a health clinic in Kenya, where health workers use it both for training purposes and as a job aid at the maternity ward.
In the development of the Safe Delivery App, doctors, software developers and an NGO have joined forces to create an innovative mobile health tool that can revolutionize the way skills and knowledge are taught in the periphery of the health system:
Dr. Stine Lund, a pediatrician from University of Copenhagen and Dr. Bjarke Lund Sørensen, an obstetrician from University of Southern Denmark, share an extensive experience with health systems in sub-Saharan Africa, teaching emergency obstetric and neonatal care and using mobile solutions to improve maternal and child health. They have been responsible for the framing, designing and validation of the clinical content of the app.
Maternity Foundation, a Danish NGO operating under the vision that “No woman should die giving life”, has been responsible for the overall management of the development process and will be driving the scale-up of the app going forward.
The app’s 10 animation films have been produced by the two doctors and Maternity Foundation in close collaboration with the production company Visikon, which develops new media solutions for the health care industry.
Going forward, the Safe Delivery App will be implemented – in local languages – across sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia in partnership with governments, midwifery associations and larger NGOs.
Maternity Foundation has made a commitment with UN’s Every Woman Every Child to reach 10,000 health workers with the app before end 2017. This will ensure a safer birth for nearly 1 million women.
The Safe Delivery App is supported by MSD for Mothers, Obelske Family Foundation, a crowdfunding campaign at Indiegogo and a number of undisclosed partners.
Click here to see the film: https://www.apple.com/education/everyone-can-code
