Vanderbilt is proud to announce the birth of a healthy, happy, parent-friendly endeavor: Baby Time, an iPhone application for expectant parents.
The free app, brainchild of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Medical Center’s Department of Strategic Marketing, is designed to help expectant parents know when it’s time to come to the hospital and, when a case of delivery-day amnesia sets in, includes a map directing them to Vanderbilt University Hospital.
Baby Time has four features: a timer to track contractions and the time between them; a hospital quick-dial for calling the provider and other important people on the expectant parents’ notification list; directions to VUH (the app is compatible and integrated with Google Maps for directions); and a Frequently Asked Questions section specifically about labor and delivery.
Helping the strategic marketing team develop the app were Dr. Evan Silverstein, MD’10, a Vanderbilt resident who was a medical student at the time, and Paramore/Redd Online Marketing & Interactive Agency of Nashville.
Phase 2 of Baby Time will be developed using feedback from new parents who used the first phase and will include other smartphone versions of the app.
Dr. Howard Jones III, the Betty and Lonnie S. Burnett Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and chair of the department at Vanderbilt, said the app came as part of a discussion about how to make the Vanderbilt labor and delivery experience more patient-friendly.
“Baby pictures and steak dinners have all been done. We wanted to offer what our patients in this demographic wanted, and an app for the iPhone was at the top of the list,” he says.
The Baby Time app is free and available through Apple’s iTunes app store.