Health eVillages launches newest program to team up with Real Medicine Foundation in South Sudan to reduce world's top maternal mortality rate

Humanitarian organizations deploy mobile resources immediately to save babies' lives

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Nov 04, 2014, 08:56 ET

READING, Mass., Nov. 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- No mother should have to die giving life to a child. But in South Sudan a woman has a 1 in 7 chance of dying in pregnancy and childbirth in her lifetime – the highest official maternal mortality rate in the world with 2,054 deaths per 100,000 live births.[1]

Health eVillages, a program of the not-for-profit Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights and Physicians Interactive, today announced that it will partner with Real Medicine Foundation (RMF) to provide funding for a full-time physician and mobile health devices and applications to help combat the tragic mortality rate in South Sudan, the newest country in the world.

RMF has been working to improve childbirth conditions in South Sudan since 2010. The organization co-founded the country's first accredited College of Nursing and Midwifery, with 30 graduates in 2013 and another 54 graduating this coming December.

RMF also delivers significant support to Juba Teaching Hospital, the only referral hospital in the country—a facility with 580 beds that serves a population of almost 10 million. The immediate launch of Health eVillages' partnership with RMF includes the following initial commitment:

Health eVillages will provide a grant to RMF to employ Mohammed Eisa, M.D., a Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award Laureate and a leader of large- and medium-scale humanitarian operations for 20 years. Originally from Darfur, Sudan, Dr. Eisa is the only medical doctor born and raised in that region. He spent more than a decade of his career leading teams of physicians, public health workers, statisticians and nurses to combat disease and improve health among the population of Sudan. Most recently, he received a Master's in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Health eVillages, which provides iPods®, iPads® and other handheld devices equipped with specialized references and clinical decision support tools to medical professionals, will deliver 30-50 mobile devices pre-loaded with clinical content each year to nursing graduates. Having this best-practice clinical information available at the point of care will help overtaxed medical personnel deliver high-quality patient care as effectively as possible in a challenging clinical environment.

"We greatly admire the passion, drive and especially the commitment to immediate action that Donato Tramuto, the founder of Health eVillages, is offering us," said Martina C. Fuchs, M.D., Ph.D., founder and CEO of RMF. "South Sudan's healthcare infrastructure has been decimated by more than two decades of civil strife and war. Training a new generation of professionals is a critical part of rebuilding this infrastructure. Dr. Eisa's experience and vision, along with the clinical decision support tools that Health eVillages brings to the table through mobile apps, will be a critical factor in reducing maternal death rates in the country."

The launch of the above initiatives is just the beginning of what will become a longer term partnership between the two humanitarian organizations.

"The work that Dr. Fuchs and RMF are doing in South Sudan is extraordinary, and we are honored to become a part of it," said Donato Tramuto, Chairman and CEO of Physicians Interactive and founder of Health eVillages. "Healthcare conditions for mothers in the region are heartbreaking and unacceptable. What we're announcing today is just a first step in our collaboration with RMF to right this wrong."

In addition to South Sudan, Health eVillages now provides support to communities in Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Haiti, India and areas of rural Louisiana affected by the Gulf Oil Spill.

About Health eVillages

Health eVillages, a program of the not-for-profit Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights and Physicians Interactive, provides state-of-the-art mobile health technology including medical reference and clinical decision support resources to medical professionals in the most challenging clinical environments around the world. For more information about Health eVillages, please visit http://www.healthevillages.org/.

About Physicians Interactive

Headquartered in Reading, MA, PI aspires to use the power of worldwide networks of healthcare professionals and life sciences companies together in ways that will change the practice and business of medicine for the better. PI's value proposition is to offer the life science industry a low-cost, virtual, multi-channel marketing approach that can be used to supplement currently promoted products, as well as non-promoted and orphaned products, that deliver benefits to physicians and patients. A key focus is providing services that fit into physicians' and healthcare professionals' daily workflow at the point-of-care when they make diagnosis, treatment and prescribing decisions. More information can be found at www.PhysiciansInteractive.com.

Media Contact:
Amendola Communications for Physicians Interactive
Tim Boivin, 224.209.6495
[email protected]

[1] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2223rank.html

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SOURCE Physicians Interactive