Newsroom

Lankenau Neurologist and Team Win App Challenge to Prevent Domestic Violence

Thursday, November 29, 2012

HealtheSAVE, a group of healthcare providers and developers led by Lankenau Medical Center neurologist Elliott Schulman, MD, was awarded fourth place and $2,500 in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the Avon Foundation for Women’s “Ending Violence @ Home App Challenge,” a global challenge aimed at preventing domestic violence.

HealtheSAVE, a mobile app, is meant to help healthcare providers better recognize patients who have experienced violence, ask them about that experience, and refer them to appropriate services. The app will educate providers about how to incorporate violence prevention into patient care and put references and resources at their fingertips. HealtheSAVE will also provide handouts and tools to educate patients about abuse, their rights, and resources for aid, and it will fund continuing education and training for providers. The developers are also designing their products to be useful to international users as well, providing links to global resources and designing their tools to work across a broad range of platforms and providers.

“We are honored to be named one of the winners in this challenge and to be recognized for the important work we are doing to raise awareness and educate individuals about domestic violence and help prevent domestic abuse through our original app,” said Dr. Schulman. “Social media and apps can play a powerful role in empowering individuals to take action and change attitudes and behaviors and we are proud to be part of the challenge.”

The winning products were selected from 19 submissions from nine countries and were chosen on the basis of their innovation, design, potential impact, ability to integrate evidence-based information, and usability in different settings.

Contact
Bridget Therriault
Director, Communications
Office: 484-580-1025
Cell: 484-222-9154
therriaultb@mlhs.org