Early detection of congenital heart disease aided by Mobile App based Echo-integrated diagnostic tool

Critical congenital heart diseases contribute to a large number of deaths in newborn babies and infants. Timely diagnosis  is key to saving lives. The availability of trained personnel to perform and interpret a neonatal echocardiogram with a reasonable degree of accuracy poses a significant challenge in early detection of CCHD. Number of trained Pediatric Cardiologists is too low compared to the number of newborns. The smiling heart App was developed to bridge this large gap. The app has an innovative tool that aids in performing Echocardiography at the bedside, facilitating timely diagnosis and referral. Early detection and timely referral will help to save lives of these babies.The hypothesis is that with the help of the app,  neonates who need urgent care /referal to a higher center can be identified by the treating pediatricians and neonatologists, without the need of a pediatric cardiologist.  The project focuses on evaluating the real world utility of the App based tool  to assist Neonatologists/Pediatricians in early detection of critical congenital heart disease. Inter observer agreement between diagnosis and recommendations made by the neonatologists with the help of the app will be done with that made by Pediatric Cardiologists with the help of the app as well as without the app. The study needs to cover 5000 neonatal ICU admissions and is planned as a multicentre project to meet this requirement.