Description of Session
Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) is a neonatal resuscitation training and educational program which has rolled out in 80+ low/middle-income countries (LMICs). From 2012 - present, a multi-disciplinary team of investigators from Indiana and Moi Universities, in collaboration with key partners, has developed various iterations of a mobile phone app to support implementation of HBB programs in LMICs. Seven members of our Indianapolis-based team performed a contextual analysis to better understand existing gaps and barriers faced by providers and supervisors in LMICs, and to map the existing mHealth ecosystem within East Africa. Then, using open-source tools, principles of user-centered design, and agile development processes, including weekly scrum meetings, our team employed four subsequent app development phases to develop and test an Android app (mobile Helping Babies Survive powered by DHIS2; mHBS/DHIS2) that can be utilized by HBB Mentors, Supervisors, Facilitators, and Providers for a wide variety of functions. mHBS is integrated with DHIS2, a health management information system platform that is utilized by many of the same countries in which HBB has reached national scale-up. Field testing is on-going in Kenya and Nigeria; a total of 12 educational evaluation, data collection, and reporting tools are available in mHBS/DHIS2. Permissions can be set in the app to allow for either identified (e.g., by name), or de-identified (e.g., by pin code) self-directed learning, and/or for HBB implementors with various roles to administer the evaluations to others, either as Facilitators, before/after a course, during quality improvement exercises, or by Providers during peer-learning. Scoring is automated, and "pass"/"fail" messages, as well as guided debriefing sequences, are fully customizable. Upon submission to the mHBS/DHIS2 server, evaluation forms are no longer editable -- providing a digital record of the progression of learning, skills, and competencies among trainees.
