Time for Product Progress

Over the course of the week, I was able to make more progress in my final product by doing some research, completing some preliminary interview questions for different professionals, and creating a contact list with people I will cold call. This week was centered mainly on my product which will be a theme hereafter because there is only two months left until Final Presentation Night. I am excited and nervous that the year is truly coming to an end, and I hope to be able to leave high school knowing that I put in my best efforts till the last day.

With my product progress, I did a lot of research, especially about echocardiograms, newborn screening processes, and some facts about insurance coverage of newborn tests. This helped me start thinking about next steps and important factors that will affect the success of my argument. I found that there are no risks in taking an echocardiogram, meaning that all newborns can take these tests and will not cause any negative symptoms or anything. This further validates the importance of taking echocardiograms to be sure that heart condition is out of the question. In addition, with newborn screening, I found that it mainly entailed a simple blood test to examine genetic markers and a hearing test, which does not relate to heart disease as much. Therefore, having echocardiograms make sense to be in the know about possible conditions that can be treated. My next goal with my research is to look more into the insurance coverage of echocardiograms. Because newborn screening is covered usually as all babies get this testing, I can see if there is a way to find an insurance plan that can help the parent’s financial stresses.

All in all, my goals for the next week is to cold call some professionals to interview, research about insurance coverage with echocardiograms, and go on a mentor visit to let Dr. Hutcheson know about my progress.

Best Regards,

Anuja Jayachandran