Libelium eHealth IoT Platform "MySignals" helps to reduce maternal deaths

Spain, 10^th May 2017

Dr. Angélica Florén receiving MySignals kit Young boy monitored with MySignals

The Dominican Republic is the third Latin-American country with major rate of maternal and neonatal deaths. The rate of pregnancies in teenagers is also very high which produces additional risks to the gestation affecting the care of premature babies.

Libelium has taken part in a project close to Infectología's Dominican Foundation  to bring over the sanitary attention to groups of patients in risk with MySignals, the Libelium eHealth Development platform. It includes 15 sensors to monitor up to 20 biometric parameters such as pulse, breath rate, oxygen in blood, electrocardiogram signals, blood pressure, muscle electromyography signals, glucose levels, galvanic skin response, lung capacity, snore waves, patient position, airflow and body scale parameters.

In 2016, Dominican Republic registered 168 mother deaths and 2.441 neonatal deaths. The 72% of them died before their first month of life. The rate of neonatal mortality in the country is 25 for every 1,000 live births.

The commonest risk in pregnant women is the preeclampsia, a disease related to the hypertension. With the aim of monitoring patients with risk of suffering arterial hypertension, the Foundation team uses MySignals to identify the symptoms in the patients in several sanitary centers as the Hospital Maternidad Los Minas, in Santo Domingo, and the Hospital Dr. Jaime Mota in Barahona.

The Foundation works in all the country to extend the programs of attention to pregnant women and premature babies in all the rural clinics and centers of primary care of the region.

MySignals is being used there to monitor at regular intervals patients with high arterial pressure. The platform allows to program a time cycle so that the blood pressure is taken and send in real time to the MySignals Cloud and mobile App.

Following-up the blood pressure, electrocardiogram, oxygen level and temperature, allow to obtain information that indicate the immediate risk of convulsing and could receive assistance before this happens. So the medical team can rely on this information to decide if it is necessary to induce the childbirth immediately.

Dr. Florén leads the medical team and emphasizes that MySignals offers an exceptional opportunity to monitor mothers at the risk of maternal mortality. "It is necessary to bear in mind that our mothers are teenagers, with scanty knowledge of health in general, and that often conceal her pregnancy until the end so they do not get any prenatal attention", affirms Dr. Florén. "When they ask for help, many come already convulsing, putting in danger her life and her baby", states.

Enhancing worldwide health assistance with MySignals

MySignals' aim is improving the future of health services to cover one of the main challenges of the century: enhancing the universal accessibility to a healthcare system for more than 2 billion people that currently have no health coverage and for 3.3 billion people that live in rural areas. This means that approximately a third of worldwide population can not access to an early diagnosis when the first symptom is detected.

MySignals has an accuracy similar to an Emergency Observation Unit. It is portable in a small suitcase and able to be distributed anywhere, even to places where currently there is no option to build a hospital like small villages located in rural areas or event places with difficult access.

More information: www.libelium.com/mysignals-helps-to-reduce-maternal-deaths-in-dominican-republic/

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a3d492b0-6ad6-4c08-abac-14155b567fda

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0b4af6a8-1b2c-4335-bb7b-887a213c1967