Tell us about your project....
An app designed to assist expectant Mothers to choose a facility to birth at based on birth choices, outcomes and facilities available. The app would also allow for women to "rate" their experience at a particular Hospital / Birth Centre / Midwifery Practice using a "star rating" system, thus giving other users of the app an idea of other consumer's experiences.
Why did you choose to build it?
So that expectant mothers can make informed decisions about where they choose to birth their baby. Informed decisions can only be made if you have access to the relevant information. At the moment, there is no actual way for an individual woman to access that information and so women are left with the only alternative - to blindly hope that she’s chosen the right place.
Recent studies show that the variances in birth outcomes are less to do with each woman's individual health and social circumstances, and more to do with the hospital/facility she gives birth at. This is mainly because of differing policies, procedures and cultural attitudes in play at each different facility.
If a woman can see the statistics for that facility, see the options available to her, see how that facility compares to others,and the state or national averages, and see how other women have rated their experience, she can make an informed choice about where she births. Ultimately, this choice will play a part in the outcome of her birth, so it's a very big and important decision to make.
For example, if a woman does a search in the app and her hospital is shown to have a caesarean rate of 50%, this would mean that ½ of all women who birth here have caesarean sections. This could be concerning to her considering she would prefer a normal vaginal birth and therefore, she may choose to birth somewhere else that gives her a better chance at a vaginal birth. This simple app could mean the difference between a normal vaginal birth and an emergency c-section for that woman.
What does it do?
-
Searches for hospitals/birth facilities based on the postcode entered
-
Shows a snapshot of information for that facility
-
Allows for a break down and drill down of various types of info & stats for that specific facility related to its maternity services.
-
Option to rate your experience at that facility based on a set of specific questions and to view the average ratings (as given by other users of BirthAdvisor)
-
Compares a single facility to the State averages in a number of areas
-
Compares multiple facilities to each other
Who is it for?
Expectant mothers. There are over 300,000 babies born every year in Australia. Every woman needs access to the information that is going to help her decide WHERE to have her baby and what she can expect from her care at that facility.
Also talk about the data you've reused, and how you've reused it.
The datasets showcased in BirthAdvisor were selected with our target audience in mind.
Carefully chosen from data.qld.gov.au to suit our application, users now are able to access both public hospital contact and location information, as well as imperative Queensland perinatal statistics, all in the one place. Data that was originally collected for hospital reporting purposes, can now be used to communicate pertinent information to all birthing mothers.
Ultimately, we would love to see current high quality perinatal data made publicly accessible both on a state and national level, which could be added to this app, to aid expectant Mothers to make informed birth choices.
How does the project satisfy the prize categories you have selected?
A Healthy Queensland
The key to improving health outcomes in the maternity care sector is publicly available hospital data that is easily accessible.
When women can make informed decisions about where they choose to give birth, they move from being passive patients in the ‘system’ to active consumers of a maternity service. Consumer demand is a powerful force in shaping the future of maternity services for the better.
We currently have a maternity sector that only measures ‘outcomes’ - such as a live mother and baby - and views this as the only indicator of success. However, we also have very concerning perinatal anxiety and depression rates. During pregnancy 1 in 10 women will suffer anxiety and/or depression and after birth (early parenthood) 1 in 7 women will suffer postnatal anxiety and/or depression.
According to PANDA, some of the known contributing factors include a difficult or complex pregnancy, Birth trauma, Premature or sick baby and Challenges with feeding or settling.
Birth trauma, according to BirthTalk.org
Data Show Off
This entry brings together pertinent hospital and perinatal data in an easy to use, engaging, modern and attractive app.
Publically available data in an easy to use format:
-
-
Keeps hospitals accountable for their performance
-
Is imperative to reducing rates of intervention
-
Will lead to improvements in maternity care as hospitals are forced to meet consumer demand.
-
Will reduce the amount of variation in experiences and outcomes between different hospitals as the source of those variations can be seen.
-
Will positively impact the budget
-
