We could not be more excited that Dr. Tamar Krishnamurti, PhD, and her 42 Days project are advancing to round three of the CTSI-sponsored Pitt Innovation Challenge (PInCh). As Dr. Krishnamurti and her team prepare for the next round of competition, we’re featuring our conversation in which she explains the basis of her team’s project and why she hopes to be one of the PInCh’s three winners of up to $125,000 to fund their work.
Dr. Krishnamurti works with the Center for Women’s Health Research and Innovation (CWHRI) and is a member of the Center for Behavioral Health + Smart Technology. She is also the CEO of Naima Health, which is the distributor of the MyHealthyPregnancy app.
MyHealthyPregnancy is a mobile health platform that was developed to help pregnant women avoid adverse pregnancy outcomes. The project is a collaboration that draws on three contributors with differing fields of expertise: Dr. Krishnamurti as a behavioral decision scientist, Dr. Hyagriv Simhan as an OBGYN with a focus on preterm birth, and Dr. Alex Davis as an applied statistician at Carnegie Mellon University.
The MyHealthyPregnancy app collects data on pregnant women through the app and the team has developed and implemented novel machine learning models to predict risk of adverse events in pregnancy.
“We then give personalized information back to women in a way that’s actionable,” Dr. Krishnamurti said. “Early intervention is key in order to address risk during pregnancy.”
Currently, the app is available in the App Store but can only be downloaded when prescribed by a healthcare provider. The app is EPIC-integrated, which Dr. Krishnamurti said gives providers “a unique opportunity to monitor risk factors in between routine healthcare appointments.”
When submitting to the Pitt Innovation Challenge to extend their existing work into the postpartum period, Dr. Krishnamurti and her existing team brought in Dr. Sonya Borrero, who directs CWHRI. Her experience as a health equity researcher and her work with the Pennsylvania Maternal Mortality Review made her expertise invaluable.
“PInCh seemed like a perfect opportunity to extend MyHealthyPregnancy into the post-partum period, since post-partum morbidity is such a problem in the US,” says Dr. Krishnamurti. “In particular, African-American women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes. Given the inequitable access to care that can occur in health systems, contributing to structural racism and the associated adverse health outcomes, carefully designed mobile health tools may actually serve to minimize bias in care, reducing health inequities.”
The 42 Days project refers to the period of time after delivery in which the majority of post-partum maternal deaths occur—25% percent of these deaths occur after women have left the hospital.
“There’s a period of about six weeks after giving birth in which women have been discharged from the hospital and aren’t in routine contact with their doctors. This is especially true in rural areas,” said Dr. Krishnamurti. “Data from statewide maternal mortality review boards are finding that more and more deaths would have been preventable with earlier symptom detection.”
The PInCh competition also offers additional funding of up to $25,000 to projects that particularly impact rural communities, where disparities in healthcare are often more pronounced.
According to Dr. Krishnamurti, 42 Days could be developed as a standalone healthcare tool or could be integrated into the existing MyHealthyPregnancy app.
“Smartphone use is ubiquitous in both rural and urban areas, so this seems like an effective way to reach both populations,” Dr. Krishnamurti said. “Half of US counties don’t have OBGYN services. Our goal with this app would be to help women to know when to prioritize reaching out to their provider or making the physical journey to seek care, especially when it might be further away.”
The third round of the Pitt Innovation Challenge consists of a live pitch. Dr. Krishnamurti and her project partners will have no more than five minutes to pitch the 42 Days app to a panel of judges, followed by four minutes of questions. In addition, this round requires a response to feedback from project reviewers.
Dr. Krishnamurti originally produced a video explaining the 42 Days project and received guidance from PInCh coordinators in preparing her subsequent written proposal.
“We have a strong, existing interdisciplinary team that has been doing work in the maternal health space,” she said. “I believe PInCh wants to invest in innovative research ideas that ultimately have a pathway to wide-scale implementation. Since members of our team have already developed a scalable product [in the form of MyHealthyPregnancy], we can see a pathway to doing the same thing with this.”
Six projects were promoted to the third and final round of competition in the Pitt Innovation Challenge, and only three will win. We’re wishing the 42 Days app team the best of luck at their final presentation on September 25! To get updates on the competition and view other advancing projects, check out the Pitt Innovation Challenge 2019 website.
August 20th, 2019