20170402-3N5A1883PRONTO International was founded by Professor Dylis Walker, Susanna Cohen and Jen Fahey in response to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 4 (to reduce child mortality) and 5 (improve maternal health) as well as, a call from the Mexican government to develop a program to improve the quality of care for women and neonates during obstetric emergencies.

The program’s main goal is to optimise care during birth by developing and implementing innovative training strategies that act as a catalyst for health care providers to make individual, team, and systems changes. The program:

  • provides low-cost, highly realistic obstetric and neonatal training for inter-professional teams in resource-limited settings worldwide.
  • assists local teams in diagnosing system barriers and identifying achievable strategies to improve patient safety and birth outcomes.
  • promotes kind, dignified, and culturally responsive care of women and babies through interactive training modules.
  • uses highly realistic simulation and debriefing to train functional teams in effective communicate and practice change.

IMG_5103It currently operates in Kenya, Uganda, India, and East Timor. One of the strengths of the program is that it is adaptive to the locality of where it is being implemented, which is achieved by working closely with local partners. The program is also based on evidence-based adult learning and simulation theory. In addition to simulation training, PRONTO International also offers simulation facilitator training which is aimed at individual providers so that they can conduct and implement simulation and team training programs within their own facilities. The program also developed the PartoPantsTM—a low-cost simulator to simulate vaginal birth, which is worn by a simulated participant (SP). This simulator is part of the PRONTOPackTM which is a portable and affordable self-contained birth simulation training kit offered by the organisation.

The outcomes of the program in Mexico include, over 5000+ healthcare providers and 150+ trainers trained, increasing knowledge and self-efficacy of the healthcare providers trained, impacting institutional change, and reducing neonatal mortality as well as decreasing the need for Caesarean deliveries.

For more details about the PRONTO International, visit their site: http://prontointernational.org/

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