A Commitment to Sustainable Improvements in Infant Survival Rates

“If you are here to give me a hand-out, you are not welcome. But if you are here to help me build capacity in my people, then stay.”
–A prominent African leader

Of all the people being impacted by the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the children of the world are foremost in the minds of GE Healthcare’s employees — especially the youngest and most fragile of these children. It is no surprise, therefore, that we are focused on MDG 4, “reducing by two-thirds the under-five mortality rate by 2015.” Nor is it a surprise that we are concentrating our efforts on helping the nations that face the longest road to meeting this goal, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa.

We agree with the quote above: As critical as philanthropy is in this environment, transformation is achievable only through local sustainability.

A Problem of Tragic Proportions

Although significant strides have been made by expanding immunisation and improving water, sanitation and nutrition, child survival remains a major public health concern in most countries in Africa.

What’s more, the first hour of life is still the most critical time of the most critical month. For infants in sub-Saharan Africa, it’s a perilous time indeed. The majority of deliveries still take place without the basics of a skilled birth attendant equipped with simple midwifery tools such as a fetoscope, basic linen to dry infants and keep them warm, and basic suction for clearing mucus, enabling babies to take their first breath. At least 50 percent of global births occur in underserved urban settings where access to affordable technology remains limited.

The results are predictable. Every minute, eight infants one month old or younger die, mostly from preventable causes; nearly as many are stillborn. In places with high infant mortality rates, newborn deaths routinely go unrecorded, and those who live are often not named until they have survived that first month. The vast majority of these deaths could be prevented if women and their babies had access to basic skilled care during pregnancy, childbirth and the first days after delivery.

Making a Real Difference

GE has taken a multi-faceted approach to addressing the problem of infant mortality.

Bob Corcoran, vice president of corporate citizenship, at Cambodia’s National Pediatric Hospital

Strategic Philanthropy:

The company’s signature program, Developing Health Globally™, is a $50 million commitment to improving healthcare delivery for some of the world’s most vulnerable people in targeted communities across the developing world.

Developing Health Globally combines GE people, processes, and technologies to deliver sustainable solutions in partnership with ministries of health in targeted countries. Employees participating in our Affinity Networks — GE’s diversity-based career-development and networking organizations — volunteer time and expertise to support the program’s success. Our Hispanic Forum in Latin America, Asian Pacific American Forum in Southeast Asia, and African American Forum in sub-Saharan Africa enable these employees to contribute to GE’s impact in unique ways.

In total, this program has already impacted nearly 5 million lives in these regions. At the same time, our employees have a first-hand opportunity to understand the needs of these non-market environments.

Commercial Development:

GE is also making major investments to develop healthcare products for the individual needs of these markets — including investments in our Maternal – Infant Care business, which is devoted exclusively to designing and delivering much-needed healthcare solutions to mothers and infants worldwide.

Among these solutions are products that have been validated for the GE healthymagination initiative — a $6 billion commitment to healthcare innovation. Launched in 2009, this initiative is designed to help deliver better care to more people at lower cost.

There are already 24 products in the healthymagination portfolio; our target is to bring to market 100 such innovations by 2015, many to meet the specific needs of developing nations.

Lullaby Warmer product demonstration

One such device is the Lullaby™ Warmer, developed by GE in Bangalore, India — a system created to address the worldwide problem of neonatal hypothermia, a contributing factor in many of the 3.1 million newborn deaths each year, particularly among low-birth-weight and pre-term infants.

The Lullaby Warmer was explicitly designed for operational ease; a simple interface and manual controls allow caregivers to concentrate on their patients instead of complex switches and settings. It allows hospitals and clinics to precisely deliver needed warmth to newborns during the critical early hours of life, often replacing make-shift heaters improvised from 60-watt light bulbs — and to do so at a significantly lower cost than its more sophisticated predecessors, while meeting all international quality and safety standards.

Ensuring Sustainability

In too many countries, equipment goes unused because there’s no one to operate it, maintain it, or replenish consumables or spare parts. In fact, equipment that can’t be used is a common sight in public hospitals and rural health clinics in developing countries.

GE is addressing this challenge in a variety of ways.

For example, to promote proper application, maintenance and repair, we make education and training available for every piece of equipment we deliver, whether through commercial contracts or philanthropic donation.

Another example: Members of our GE Healthcare Maternal – Infant Care team have been working to educate the medical community in developing nations on specific infant care processes and procedures — for instance, preventing hypothermia by keeping newborns warm. GE experts have conducted seminars on such subjects for doctors and nurses at conferences in South Africa, and have provided hands-on training in nations such as Namibia and Kenya.

Education is not just for doctors and nurses, however. As part of the Developing Health Globally program, GE is building biomedical technology training programs to enable the repair of vital, life-saving equipment, to help ensure its longevity and to optimize its utilization over its intended lifetime.

To reinforce formal training, GE is also creating a series of training videos. Caregivers and maintenance staff alike will be able to learn at their own pace about everything from using our products to ensuring that they are operating at peak performance.

The Big Picture

Much of the attention on achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals has focused on the delivery of proven solutions such as vaccination, contraception or mosquito nets. These approaches are attractive because they have a direct impact on urgent health challenges and can be delivered on any scale.

Building on these programs, we are partnering with a wide range of organizations to deliver comprehensive solutions that promote the safety of mother and child alike in clinics and hospitals worldwide — and especially in developing-world nations. Toward that end, we are now focusing our efforts on implementation, in order to make today’s progress part of each nation’s infrastructure, and part of each healthcare worker’s routine to bridge the “know-do” gap.

Successful organizations are great problem-solvers. At GE, we believe we have a great opportunity to help enhance each nation’s ability to solve local healthcare challenges. Through healthymagination, Developing Health Globally, innovative product development and comprehensive educational initiatives, we are committed to helping nations worldwide achieve dramatic and sustainable improvements in infant survival rates.