The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities has awarded MaineHealth a four-year, $2.8 million grant to further develop technology designed to improve neonatal resuscitation skills among rural clinicians.

Rural delivery teams often lack regular opportunities to practice critical resuscitation skills due to low birth volumes in their communities and the high cost of traditional simulation training. As a result, newborns born at rural hospitals who require resuscitation are at four times the risk of birth asphyxia, a preventable cause of death and severe brain damage in infants, than those born at a major urban hospital. Dr. Mary Ottolini, the George W. Hallet, MD, Chair of Pediatrics at MaineHealth Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital (MHBBCH), along with co-investigators Dr. Michael Ferguson, Dr. Leah Mallory, Dr Allison Zanno and Dr. Misty Melendi, developed HoloBaby™ as a lower-cost way of training rural delivery teams to resuscitate newborns.

“The first 15 to 20 minutes of a baby’s life can determine its next 60 years,” said Dr. Ottolini. “Our team at the MaineHealth Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital wants to ensure children, starting at birth, have an opportunity for a high quality of life no matter their zip code.”

Using seed money from MaineHealth Innovation and Northeastern University’s Roux Institute, Dr. Ottolini and MHBBCH co-investigators worked with a team at The Interactive Commons at Case Western Reserve University to develop HoloBaby™.

Providers training with HoloBaby™ wear augmented reality glasses that overlay realistic visual and auditory clinical cues onto a low-cost manikin. They can hear sounds such as the baby’s grunting, crying or struggling to breathe – as well as its heartbeat and see vitals signs and the EKG tracing on a holographic monitor that is synchronized with HoloBaby’s appearance. The mixed-reality technology responds to the care team’s interventions in real time. Healthcare providers are able to rehearse high-stakes scenarios using real equipment in their own delivery rooms. Coaches can work with them remotely using telemedicine tools.

With this funding from the NIH, MaineHealth hopes to build on early studies at its rural hospitals that showed improved adherence to Neonatal Resuscitation Program guidelines and enhanced teamwork. Previous NIH infrastructure grants establishing the Northern New England Clinical and Translational Research Network and the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence in Acute Care Research and Rural Disparities allowed MaineHealth to conduct those pilot studies supporting this grant application.

This grant also will support efforts to make the HoloBaby™ compatible with more operating systems and allow research into whether artificial intelligence can improve HoloBaby™’s assessment of how care teams are performing.

“Reducing health disparities in our rural communities is critical to MaineHealth’s vision of working together so our communities are the healthiest in America,” said MaineHealth Vice President of Research Jessica Chertow. “We are incredibly grateful to Maine’s Congressional delegation for championing the research funding needed to improve rural patient care now and in the future.”

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01MD019243, Award Number P20GM139745 and Award Number U54GM115516. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

About MaineHealth

MaineHealth is a not-for-profit, integrated health system whose vision is, “Working together so our communities are the healthiest in America,” and is committed to a mission of providing high-quality affordable care, educating tomorrow's caregivers and researching better ways to provide care. MaineHealth includes a Level 1 trauma medical center, eight additional licensed hospitals, comprehensive pediatric care services, an extensive behavioral health care network, diagnostic services as well as home health, hospice and senior care services. With more than 2,000 employed providers and approximately 23,000 care team members, MaineHealth provides preventive care, diagnosis and treatment to 1.1 million residents in Maine and New Hampshire. MaineHealth hospitals include MaineHealth Behavioral Health at Spring Harbor in Westbrook, MaineHealth Franklin Hospital in Farmington, MaineHealth Lincoln Hospital in Damariscotta, MaineHealth Maine Medical Center in Portland, Biddeford and Sanford, MaineHealth Memorial Hospital in North Conway, N.H., MaineHealth Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick, MaineHealth Pen Bay Hospital in Rockport, MaineHealth Stephens Hospital in Norway and MaineHealth Waldo Hospital in Belfast. MaineHealth also includes the MaineHealth Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital in Portland, MaineHealth Behavioral Health in Westbrook, MaineHealth Home Health and Hospice in Saco, the MaineHealth Institute for Research in Scarborough, the MaineHealth Medical Group and MaineHealth NorDx in Scarborough. MaineHealth affiliates include MaineGeneral Health in Augusta and Waterville and St. Mary's Health System in Lewiston. It is also a significant stakeholder in the MaineHealth Accountable Care Organization in Portland and a joint venture partner in the New England Rehabilitation Hospital in Portland.