Philadelphia U grad student develops data collection tech for Midwives for Haiti

Without data, a nonprofit can’t tell its full story. It can’t show the extent of its reach. And for an organization that relies on donors to keep it funded, data could mean the difference between staying open or closing up shop.

That’s what Philadelphia University grad student Tracy McCarthy realized when she began working with Midwives for Haiti, a nonprofit that trains Haitian men and women as skilled birth attendants.

Midwives for Haiti aims to lower Haiti’s maternal mortality rate: Haitian women have a 1 in 44 chance of dying in childbirth, the worst rate in the Western hemisphere. But the organization didn’t have a way to collect data on its work.

McCarthy, 27, who began working with Midwives for Haiti through the Philadelphia Midwifery Department at Philadelphia University, developed a low-cost data collection system for the organization. In her words:

After assisting a patient, the participating skilled birth attendant will record pertinent data by filling out a multiple-choice survey.  An image of the completed survey will be captured by a digital camera and securely and privately stored onto a memory card.  When the jeep returns to headquarters, a software program will interpret the image capture and report the brightness values of to a .csv table, to then be imported into an excel database where it is managed and sorted.

Midwives for Haiti will pilot the program this summer at its mobile clinic, which travels to remote parts of Haiti to assist in childbirth. It doesn’t require an Internet connection, any additional training to use and can be easily replaced if lost or broken, McCarthy said.

After graduation this spring, McCarthy, who hopes to travel to Haiti this summer to see the tool in action, will move to Houston, Tex. to be with her fiance.