- The Obstetric Safe Surgery (OSS) Project in Kenya is funded by Johnson & 
Johnson and to date has been implemented by Jhpiego as the lead organization, 
in collaboration with County and National Ministries of Health and professional 
associations.

- To support implementation moving forward, Proximie and Ariadne Labs have 
formed a unique partnership with Jhpiego to integrate Jhpiego's best practices 
in safe obstetric surgery with Proximie's state of the art technology platform 
to leverage multi-sensory augmented reality tools.  

- The OSS project, working closely with leadership from the Kenya Ministry of 
Health, aims to address some of the key health systems challenges in the 
maternal health space, specifically in the safety and quality of cesareans. 

- Globally, approximately 810 women die every day from preventable causes 
related to pregnancy and childbirth. In addition, around 6700 newborns die 
every day, amounting to 47% of all under-5 deaths. Moreover, about 2 million 
babies are stillborn every year, with over 40% occurring during labor. 

- Life-saving or disability-averting treatment offered by surgery is 
unavailable to 5 billion people, almost three quarters of the global 
population, and this burden is disproportionately borne by those living in 
Low-to-Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). 

- Proximie's software will help virtually train and mentor surgical teams in 
helping save the lives of mothers and newborns. 

- The project is currently being implemented in Makueni County.  

Proximie has teamed up with Jhpiego, a Johns Hopkins University affiliate, on a 
safe surgery project in Kenya to layer in their unique software that allows 
physicians anywhere in the world to virtually "scrub-in" and mentor colleagues 
in real time. 

Proximie has offered its technology to Jhpiego, a global health non-profit 
working in 40-plus countries, to improve obstetric surgical care for women by 
expanding and enhancing the learning and mentorship in Jhpiego's Obstetric Safe 
Surgery project now underway in five hospitals in Makueni County. The goal of 
the 22-month project is to support the government of Kenya's commitment to 
reduce maternal and newborn deaths and obstetric-related injuries by improving 
the quality of caesarean sections. Seventy-one percent of facility-based 
maternal deaths in Kenya are associated with caesarean sections, and 9 out of 
10 maternal deaths are linked to a lack of quality standardized care.

Funded by Johnson & Johnson, the Jhpiego-led project is grounded in a 
health-systems approach, leveraging local expertise to build networks of care 
to deliver safe and timely surgical obstetric care. The Proximie platform 
offers the prospect of enhanced and expanded learning by obstetric surgical 
teams. 

Supporting the design and evaluation of the enhanced OSS project is Ariadne 
Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham and Women's 
Hospital, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr. Doris Mbithi, Medical Superintendent of the Mother and Child Hospital in 
Makueni County and a partner on the OSS project, said the Jhpiego-Proximie 
alliance will help surgeons perfect their skills and address issues that 
arise.  

"Sometimes things happen in the (operating) theatre and not all team members 
remember the process," she said. "With the recordings, we can identify gaps and 
rectify. I am also happy that at night, I have the possibility to support 
remotely, either at my hospital or to help keep a potential referral at the sub 
county hospital by consulting remotely." 

Dr. John Varallo, Global Director Safe Surgery at Jhpiego, said the partnership 
can increase the impact realized thus far: "By offering real-time, remote 
surgical consultation, this project has the true potential of being a 
game-changer in improving the safety and quality of surgical care in Kenya, and 
in other countries where Jhpiego works. Collaborating with innovative thought 
leaders at Proximie and Ariadne Labs, and continuing to work in close 
partnership with the government of Kenya and the surgical teams on the ground, 
our true champions of the Obstetric Safe Surgery work, we have the opportunity 
to amplify the progress made in surgical safety and quality to date."

Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram, CEO of Proximie, said she founded Proximie "on the 
ethos that shared knowledge leads to accelerated learning and better patient 
care," and the Obstetric Safe Surgery project embodies that. 

"Our work with the local surgical teams on the ground in Kenya, and with 
Jhpiego, and Ariadne Labs, is going to help democratize access to important 
caesarean section surgical techniques and knowledge that would otherwise be 
siloed due to geography or time," Hachach-Haram said. "Proximie is going to be 
harnessed pre, intra and postoperatively in order to ensure women and their 
babies have access to high-quality care, at a critical time. I have always 
believed that collaboration is the cornerstone of driving meaningful change in 
healthcare and the Obstetric Safe Surgery project will not just help to reduce 
maternal and neonatal mortality, but hopefully provide a blueprint for others 
to follow." 

A leader in healthcare innovation and implementation, Ariadne Labs has 
experience in designing and building in-country capacity and expertise to 
implement digital innovations which will be leveraged to inform critical 
discussions on sustainable digital health throughout Kenya, and beyond. 

"We're pleased to collaborate with Proximie and Jhpiego to leverage our 
experience in public health, frontline clinical care, and human-centered design 
to improve the quality of surgical care that women and their newborns receive 
as well as enhance the clinician experience," said Katherine Semrau, PhD, MPH, 
Principal Investigator and Director of Ariadne Labs' BetterBirth program. "Our 
aim at Ariadne Labs is to reduce suffering and save lives for people everywhere 
-- whether in Boston, Nairobi, or Lucknow -- by developing scalable, 
systems-level solutions. We look forward to supporting the measurement and 
evaluation of this work, to ultimately improve the interventions and their 
implementation."

Notes To Editors

You can follow the Project across social media channels with the hashtag 
#ProjectSafeSurgery as well as on Medium Magazine The Link.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1705841/Proximie_1.jpg
Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1705842/Proximie_2.jpg

Source: Proximie