A Healthy and Safe Pregnancy

Links:

Contact
Contact information about those involved in the project.

Proposal
Our latest project proposal.

Meeting Notes
Minutes from the meetings we've had.

Initial Storyboard
Our initial storyboard as presented in class on 3 /15/01

CS 92
The course home page.

REVISED PROJECT DESCRIPTION

BACKGROUND:

Infant injuries and deaths pose a serious health problem to Rhode Island's poorer communities. In a recent report by the Rhode Island Department of Health, Central Falls and Pawtucket showed significant increases in the post neonatal death rate while other communities across the state continued to show decreases in this rate.

Maternal care decisions play a major role in reducing the risk of infant injury or death and in determining whether infants are born healthy. Educating mothers to make informed and healthy decisions about their pregnancy and about caring for their children reduces the risk of injury to the child. Traditionally, health clinic workers disseminate literature and work with at-risk mothers to increase the quality of maternal care decisions. The limited funding of community health clinics, however, strains the effectiveness of the health workers' efforts. Procedures to identify at-risk mothers and the process of educating mothers to make safe maternal care decisions must be improved.

Computer software offers a low-cost and effective means to educate and perform initial screenings at the clinics. Such a software system will allow health center workers to focus their attention on the most at-risk cases. In other words, health center resources will be directed to where they are most needed.

Dr. Joseph Hallet (Dept. of Pediatrics, Brown University) envisioned this software almost eight years ago. With his help, we will make his vision a reality and provide mothers with the knowledge to make safer decisions for their children.

GOALS OF THE SOFTWARE:

We are designing the software to: identify at-risk mothers, educate women about maintaining a safe and healthy pregnancy, educate women about common dangers facing infants, provide health care workers with .

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE SOFTWARE:

This software will be implemented at prenatal health clinics serving young women (ages 16-24) in Central Falls and in Pawtucket (Blackstone Valley Community Health Clinic and The Family Care Center at Memorial Hospital.)

This software will educate pregnant women about maintaining a healthy pregnancy (avoiding drug use, keeping a consistent and fortified diet, etc.) . After presenting the information, the software will also assess that the user has learned and understood the recommendations. This is the charge of our software: to ensure that women not only have the knowledge to make positive maternal care decisions, but that these women actually see its connection to their lives and make choices that demonstrate a regard for their pregnancy and child.

The software will track the progress of each user and identify those women who are the most "at-risk," or show the most need for information about making positive maternal care choices. The software must be able to measure what women have learned and account for methods to re-teach the particular portions about which they are unclear. The software will be used over multiple sessions, so users must be able to stop and start again where they have left off.

Data must be easily exported, compiled, and viewed on a daily basis by clinic staff; the data must also be secure.

The software must be "user friendly." We assume that most users will not be experienced with computers. Limited English proficiency by some users is also expected. We hope to make the software as interactive and media-rich as possible. We recognize that the software must motivate the women to want to learn. The knowledge that the software imparts is useless to the women if they do see its relevance to their own lives.

We are considering using Authorware or Director as authoring tools; we are also considering making the software modular so that different clinics could tailor the program to the specific needs of their local community.

The software will run on computers with modest speeds and memory capacities. Internet access and networks appear too costly to incorporate into this system; however, we are still open to any workarounds.

We plan to design and build the software with extensive input from Dr. Hallet and the staff from the health clinics; we also intend to test extensively the modules with local female high school students.