Healthy Tomorrow

Healthy Tomorrow is an educational app developed by McMillen Health, a respected leader in preventive health education. The app has a goal of improving health outcomes for women with opioid use disorder (OUD) and babies with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). It follows the Safe, Stable, Nurturing Families Model and has short, easy to understand educational videos on prenatal care, OUD treatment, mental health, and many more topics!

In 2018, McMillen Health conducted a community needs assessment called In Her Words to find out how we could contribute to solving the opioid epidemic. We had honest and eye-opening conversations with women who have OUD and who were pregnant or had recently had a baby. We also talked to professionals serving women with OUD and their babies born with NAS.

What we discovered: accessible educational resources are critically needed and virtually non-existent.

Women overwhelmingly asked for educational content in video format (no more brochures to toss out!) that they could easily access from their phones. These findings were the inspiration needed to develop Healthy Tomorrow, a mobile app with educational videos geared towards pregnant, or recently pregnant, women. The Healthy Tomorrow app is a five-year project, with the first year of development focusing on women with OUD and their babies with NAS. Over the next four years, additional video content will be developed focusing on prenatal health, safe sleep, tobacco use during pregnancy, nutrition and breastfeeding. App users can earn rewards for viewing videos and answering a few questions.

Some of the topics covered in the app:

Caring for yourself and your baby during pregnancy

What to expect at the hospital

What to know after taking your baby home

How to build a support network

The importance of staying in treatment for OUD

Your mental health during and after pregnancy