Midwifery app helps screen birth conditions

A midwifery lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University has developed a new app that aims to help healthcare practitioners, educators and student midwives screen for health conditions at birth. Lindsey Rose is the brain behind it…

Lyndsey - I wanted to have a resource for my students originally to do this really complex examination for newborns that every baby has at seventy, seventy two hours of birth. And again, at six weeks, I wanted a quick and easy resource that they could just flip up from their pocket and get everything that they needed to know.

Chris - These are the things that you are looking for, because we always say prevention is better than cure. Pick stuff up early and you can intervene and solve problems before they become an issue.

Lyndsey - So it's screening, it's not diagnostic. It's screening and it's an educational tool to help. We look mainly at hips, heart, eyes, and testes in these babies. But the app actually covers much more than that because it's a holistic examination.

Chris - Was this a particular problem for midwives? Remembering and feeling sufficiently resourced to do these checks thoroughly then in the past?

Lyndsey - I don't think so much that it's a particular problem. It's just really nice to have a handy resource that you can use in practice. So that, and also links to the online screening committee, national screening committee's guidelines, so that when things change, they can just make sure they get the appropriate information. So it's all about having that quick and easy resource. It's also very dynamic. It's got heart sounds on there. It's got lots of pictures. All the pictures were drawn by students who did a competition to get the work. So yeah, I'm really proud of it.

Chris - I've had a go. You sent me a login. It runs on a phone. You can also do it on a desktop. I was quite pleased about that because often you are forced onto one device with these sorts of things and yes, I found the heart sounds, and I was impressed because when I was a medical student trying to find good quality heart sounds you could listen to, to learn what you are listening for, it was almost impossible. So how did you do it?

Lyndsey - I had a wonderful colleague, down in Dorset and she very kindly collected some heart sounds for me and yeah, just working, going into practice and we bought a digital recorder. It's about networking, I think, and that this app has really enabled that.

Chris - Is this effectively that in the 21st century, what we in the medical trade used to call cheese and onion. We used to have a book, the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine, which every starting out doctor and medical student had in their pocket, which was basically the reference book. You go to that for all the clinical science and things. My copy looked very, very thumbed by the end of my training. Is this the 21st century? This is the equivalent really of that for midwives.

Lyndsey - Yeah, that's what my research is all about actually for my PhD is looking at, using digital technology and in healthcare and so that patients feel comfortable that you're actually on your phone while you're caring for them.

Chris - Well, I was going to say that because the one thing that really upsets patients. And it upset me. I went to see a GP to get a form signed recently and I didn't look the person in the eye once because they were looking at a computer screen and, the thought that you've got someone with their new baby and the healthcare worker flips out a phone and just stares at a phone. Are patient's comfortable with that sort of interaction?

Lyndsey - I think they're going to be over time. Maybe not straight away, but what's lovely about the app is the midwife or whoever's doing the examination can actually show them what they're looking at, show them some diagrams, let them listen to the heart sound, say this is what I'm listening for. And because it's so interactive, they can actually involve the parents in it as well.

Chris - How's it been received?

Lyndsey - Really, really well. It's going, it's being taken up quite well across the country for the universities and for individual midwives out there as well. So I'm really looking to try and get into GP practices because the examination, the NIPE examination is done again at six weeks and they check the same things again.

Chris - Overseas?

Lyndsey - Yes. And overseas, we're working at the moment with Karolinska Institute in Sweden for their medical students there because their midwives don't do this examination. The doctors do it there, but also in third world countries. I'd really love for them to have it so that conditions, particularly congenital cataracts, are picked up early. People know what to look for and maybe can get treatment.

Chris - And just very briefly, what's it called and how do people get it or find out more?

Lyndsey - It's called NIPE, which stands for Newborn Infant Physical Examination. Textbook in a pocket and it's on the Apple store and the Google Play store.