Philips Philippines introduced the Mobile Obstetrics Monitoring (or MOM), a smartphone-based solution that addresses the root causes of high maternal mortality rate in the Philippines.
IMAGE FROM PIXABAY.COM
In the Philippines, the second country to adopt the MOM program, maternal deaths remain to be a major concern. A priority in the Sustainable Growth Development goals of the government, the country’s maternal mortality rate is considered very high at 162 deaths per 100,000 live births as of 2015. Although it was dropping in recent years, it has not been reduced enough to meet the Millennium Development Goal target of 52 deaths per 100,000.
According to the Department of Health, the problem of maternal deaths is attributed to the delays in reaching appropriate centers; delays in health care provision for expectant mothers; and delays in seeking medical assistance. As a result of these challenges, antenatal support is not provided and obligations are not identified early on so when the time the problem was realized, nothing can be done to solve it.
Urasinee Patarasongkram, country manager at Philips Philippines, said the maternal mortality in the Philippines is very high and it is even far from the government target. MOM is an affordable solution that supports midwives and doctors in facilitating care for pregnant mothers in under-served areas.
To address the increasing concern with maternal mortality, the MOM application, which consists of Web app, midwives or caregiver app, and the doctor app, was developed. The solution works by enabling midwives to record pregnancy data and other vital measurement in their mobile. Midwives go outside the health centers to meet mothers, provide first antenatal care and conduct examinations to assess risk levels of pregnancy. All these, including the results of exams, are all captured in the app, and can be done offline.
Once data is captured in the app, the doctor can review patient’s data and records, and remotely monitor patients anytime, anywhere. In the app, the doctor can see a dashboard of recent levels of all pregnancies and have them amend based on his assessment on all the data captured. The assessment of the doctor is very important as it enables him to suggest protocol for a particular pregnancy. The patient then is taken cared at the right level of urgency and at the right time. When the information had sit into the system, it is shared to everyone because there is a common repository of all pregnancies across the area, and based on this, population management, benchmarking across health centers and delivery care optimization can be done.
Initially launched in Indonesia, the MOM application is one way of leveraging mobile in its maximum to save birth. In the Philippines, its intention is to monitor risk levels of pregnancies and make zero fatality. The company is currently in the process of making discussions with government units and some non-profit organizations regarding its campaign on maternal mortality as well as the app.
