Julia Payne
Research Mentor(s): Dhanalakshmi Thiyagarajan
Mentor Department: Obstetrics and Gynecology
Authors: Julia Payne, Ashley Li, Abhijeet Suryadevara, Anna Olson, Josie Buchan, Hannah Guo, Eliza Steinberg, Dhanalakshmi Thiyagarajan
Session: Session 2 (10:00am – 10:50am)
Presentation Type: Poster 72
Abstract
Background In low-resource settings, the leading cause of maternal death is postpartum hemorrhage, a complication following birth where a patient presents with excessive bleeding. Current practices rely on the visual estimation of blood loss, which can lead to inaccuracies and delays in both diagnosis and intervention for affected patients. Our innovation is a device called Quantavag which is placed in a patients’ vagina and collects uterine blood loss externally. We aim to develop an alert system for Quantavag to aid in timely diagnosis. Methods Focusing on the alert component of our device, we conducted customer discoveries and created a set of requirements and specifications for an alert system to help healthcare professionals diagnose postpartum hemorrhage. Using this information, we sketched a model of our device and reviewed types of materials, electrical components, and potential additional functions for this device. Additionally, we evaluated methods and developed a protocol to conduct user validation testing for assessment of the acceptability and feasibility of our device among Ghanaian clinicians, midwives, nurses, and patients. Results We conducted 16 customer discoveries among Ghanaian and U.S. patients, nurses, midwives, and doctors. We found an alert system focused on aiding health care professionals to diagnosis of postpartum hemorrhage would be beneficial. We also found that a patient-based or time-based component for patient-focused care and/or aiding in transportation to tertiary care centers is not priority. Our other requirements include low-cost, in real-time diagnosis, low-training level for use. While we are still evaluating methods to accomplish our requirements, our top idea involves active weight-based diagnosis while our device is in use. After a literature review of various usability testing metrics, we developed a protocol to utilize a 42-item usability questionnaire, specifically designed for the evaluation of a medical device’s usability for quantitive data, and theoretical framework of acceptability for qualitative data. Conclusion We hope our alert system can be incorporated directly into our vaginal quantification component as opposed to as a separate device. We hope to gain approval for user testing in Ghana to understand local patients and health care professionals perspectives and attitudes on our quantification device through mixed methods data. This feedback will be incorporated to iterate on our device appropriately. By improving the accuracy of blood quantification and timely diagnosis of postpartum hemorrhage, our device has the potential to lower maternal mortality rates in low and middle-income countries.
