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Delfina
Tackling maternal health risks one algorithm at a time
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“Post-COVID, maternal health is the public health challenge of our time,” says Senan Ebrahim, M.D., Ph.D., the CEO of Delfina — referencing the fact that the U.S. maternal mortality rate is nearly twice as high as that of other high-income countries. Delfina is on a mission to change this.
The app the company has created enables users to monitor their physical and mental health as pregnancy progresses and alerts them to any risks. It also provides services that make the pregnancy experience smoother. For example, users can contact a doula who can answer questions about everything from prenatal vitamins to the best places to buy maternity swimwear.
First and foremost, though, is Delfina’s commitment to protecting the health of mothers and babies. Dr. Ebrahim highlights the experience of a patient in Texas who realized — thanks to the app’s remote monitoring capabilities — that her blood pressure had shot up. She contacted her physician, who promptly sent her to the emergency room. There, it was discovered that she had developed gestational hypertension. She was induced and had a safe vaginal delivery the same day. “She and her physician both attribute that great outcome to Delfina,” Dr. Ebrahim says.
The Accelerate program was vital in ensuring the success and growth that Delfina is experiencing. “It’s not every day that a top academic institution opens its doors to a company that hasn’t even existed for a year and says, ‘Yeah, let’s help you make sure the product you’re going to put out into the world meets the very highest clinical, scientific and safety standards,’” Dr. Ebrahim says. “Mayo brought in experts to show us how to build this product in a best-in-class way that’s safe for patients. That gave us the confidence to take these models out to market.”
Delfina now envisions a future where they’re able to provide long-term support to patients, optimizing their health from before they conceive through the postpartum period. With offices in New York City, Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Rochester, Minnesota, Delfina is growing — and supporting Mayo Clinic’s goal of making the area around its Rochester campus a hub for tech innovation and entrepreneurship in the Midwest.
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