VIBRANT: Early Prediction of Life-Threatening Uterine Atony Using Maternal Heart Rate

Uterine atony accounts for a vast majority of all postpartum hemorrhages (PPH), the leading cause of maternal mortality world-wide. Uterine atony occurs when the uterine muscle (called the myometrium) does not sufficiently contract to arrest parturient bleeding after delivery. While there exist treatments for uterine atony, delays in intervention reduce their effectiveness. To improve time-to-intervention, postpartum hemorrhage risk prediction tools have been integrated into the standard-of-care for obstetrics. Unfortunately, these tools miss almost half of all PPHs. This paper presents VIBRANT as a clinical decision support tool providing early prediction of potentially life-threatening uterine atony. VI-BRANT is physiologically inspired and designed to identify signals of myometrial fatigue argued to be present in streaming maternal heart rate data. Evaluations of the system indicate that VIBRANT , at a clinically actionable specificity, identifies over 80% of potentially life-threatening uterine atony missed by current gold-standard risk prediction tools. Moreover, the system provides between 2 and 8 hours advance warning to care teams prior to delivery for parturients at high-risk, providing ample time for preparation and timely intervention. VIBRANT has been licensed to a commercial partner and is in preparation for a clinical trial to support a regulatory submission and pre-market approval.CCS Concepts• Applied computing → Health informatics; Health care information systems; Consumer health.