Today’s tech world is an app world; there is an app for practically everything you can think of. And now, a new app promises to change the nine-month experience for pregnant women. A new smartphone application is providing pregnant women with pregnancy information by a simple touch of their smartphone’s button. The innovative app was developed by Musgrove Park Hospital clinicians.
The Musgrove Park Hospital app is a good example of how application development is impacting the healthcare industry. Indeed, if you were to contact Entrance Custom Application Development services, they would tell you of a surge in interest by healthcare institutions to create custom applications to serve their patients.
The smartphone app, referred to as the HANDi maternity app was launched last April. It features maternity leaflets, useful contact information including phone numbers, general information on pregnancy, a calendar for confidential appointments and various helpful videos that include a tour video for Musgrove maternity wing.
According to the developers, the idea of creating this app was birthed following pregnant women’s feedback to the hospital midwives. They said they wanted accurate information about pregnancy to be within their reach at any given time. And what better way to fulfil this desire than to make available to them an app they can access via their smartphones? And in an era where people no longer read printed leaflets or find it an unnecessary bother having to carry them wherever they go, an app made the most sense.
Katy Evans is Musgrove Park Hospital’s maternity matron. She worked closely with the software firm that created the app to make sure the needs of soon-to-be moms would be satisfactorily considered all through the app development process.
The HANDi maternity app is not the only app that Musgrove has developed. Back in 2015, the hospital introduced HANDi paediatric app. Later, the hospital would introduce the POPS app (paediatric observation priority scoring app) that clinicians in the emergency department can use during the treatment of unwell children.
According to Katy Evans, the app is extremely easy to use and is expected to have far-reaching benefits for many pregnant women and their families. The virtual tour available for mums to see the hospital’s maternity unit is expected to help pregnant women familiarize themselves with the environment in which they hope to be when the delivery time comes. They can watch and get a good feel and idea of what they can expect from the probable birthing environment.
Furthermore, the hospital says it is ready and willing to listen to mums and mums-to-be reading how they can improve the app. They hope that the updates they will issue in the future for the app will make the app even more helpful for expectant women. The app is available both on Apple Store and Google Play.