Nurses Leading Innovation

Nurse Invents Phone App to Support Child Car Safety

Shaken by the experience of witnessing a child nearly die from heat exhaustion after accidentally being left in a hot car, emergency room nurse Maria Striemer, RN, BA, channeled her insight to invent the Backseet Buddy, an app that provides parents with peace of mind that it won’t happen to them.

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Our lives can become governed by routines. So much so that little changes—like a detour on the way to work, or an unexpected phone call—can have unimaginable consequences. Maria Striemer, RN, BA, was in the emergency department when she treated a child accidentally left in a car from heat exhaustion. Unable to leave the experience behind, Maria began a journey that was anything but routine. She and her engineer husband worked to develop Backseet Buddy, a sensor that uses a Bluetooth connected app to detect when a phone has moved more than 50 meters from a car seat and sends a phone alert. Along the way, she contended with negative feedback, setbacks, and a global pandemic that put Backseet Buddy on-hold. This inspired an awareness campaign, and an entirely new product that protects the ears of frontline workers forced to wear masks for extended periods of time. In this Moment of Awareness, Maria’s experience developing the Backseet Buddy is emblematic of her nursing career: using collaboration to build, often from the bottom up, novel ways to keep people safe.

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Guest(s) Featured in this Episode
• Maria Striemer, RN, BA

Episode Resources
• Keeping Kids Safe. Facts from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
• KidsAndCars.org: An advocacy center that conducts research on car-related dangers surrounding children
• Nurse Invents Phone App to Support Child Car Safety
• Save The Ears Campaign