Nationwide Children's Hospital Joins Nationwide to Make Safe Happen Easier for Parents and Caregivers

March 9, 2015

Watch this video to learn more about the Make Safe Happen app.

Nationwide Children’s Hospital is joining Nationwide – one of the largest and strongest diversified insurance and financial services organizations in the U.S. –  in their effort to prevent childhood injury. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), injuries are the number one cause of death of children, and many injuries occur in and around the home. Through this new Make Safe Happen initiative, Nationwide Children’s researchers developed a new Make Safe Happen app to help prevent childhood injury. The app, now available for free on both iOS and Android, aims to help parents make their home safer. Parents can learn as they go with customized room-to-room safety checklists and links to safety products for the home.

“I have been an injury researcher for more than a decade, but it wasn’t until I was pregnant with triplets that I realized the need to make safety easier for busy parents,” said Dr. Lara McKenzie, a principal investigator with Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP). “We created something that I needed as a mom, and that would give parents and caregivers the tools they needed to make their home safer for their family. You can create shopping lists, set reminders and track your progress towards making your home as safe as possible for your family. And you can do all of this on your smartphone.”

Since the 1930s, Nationwide has played an active role in supporting this issue, including their engagement with CIRP, founded by Dr. Gary Smith, an internationally-recognized pediatrician and author of more than 150 child injury-related articles in peer-reviewed journals. Contributions made by the Nationwide Foundation to Nationwide Children’s have supported important child safety research, and most recently the development of the Make Safe Happen app.

“Nationwide has always been committed to protecting what matters most to our members, and for parents, there’s nothing more important than the safety of their children,” said Matt Jauchius, Nationwide’s chief marketing officer. “This is an issue we’ve been passionate about as a company for more than 60 years. We’re dedicated to devoting resources to help prevent these tragedies from taking place through our new Make Safe Happen program.”

“We are grateful to Nationwide for their long-standing support of our mission to conduct innovative research and make discoveries that will prevent injuries in children,” said Dr. Smith, pediatrician and founder and director of CIRP. “We commend Nationwide for bringing the important issue of child injury to the forefront through Make Safe Happen and are grateful for the support of Nationwide and the Nationwide Foundation in bringing the Make Safe Happen app to life as an empowering tool for parents everywhere.”  

For more information on child home safety visit MakeSafeHappen.com.

New, free Make Safe Happen app aims to help parents protect their children by identifying hazards in each room of the home.

About Nationwide

Nationwide, a Fortune 100 company based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest and strongest diversified insurance and financial services organizations in the U.S. and is rated A+ by both A.M. Best and Standard & Poor’s. The company provides a full range of insurance and financial services, including auto, commercial, homeowners and life insurance; public and private sector retirement plans, annuities and mutual funds; banking and mortgages; specialty health; pet, motorcycle, boat and farm insurance. For more information, visit www.nationwide.com.

Nationwide, Nationwide is on your side, and the Nationwide N and Eagle are service marks of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company.

About Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Nationwide Children’s Hospital is America’s 3rd largest pediatric hospital and research center with more than 1 million patient visits each year. The Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s is dedicated to reducing childhood injuries worldwide. Nationwide’s 60-year history of support to the hospital includes close to $100 million in transformational giving from the Nationwide Insurance Foundation. This funding has supported key treatment and research areas including heart, neonatology and injury prevention. Visit Nationwidechildrens.org.

About Nationwide Foundation
The Nationwide Foundation is an independent corporation funded by contributions from Nationwide companies. Founded in 1959, the Nationwide Foundation has committed more than $345 million since 2000 to help nonprofit organizations in communities where Nationwide associates and their families live and work. Just as Nationwide supports its customers in their moment of need, the company’s involvement in its home communities is focused on supporting organizations that help people facing critical or immediate need.

About Nationwide Children's Hospital

Named to the Top 10 Honor Roll on U.S. News & World Report’s 2023-24 list of “Best Children’s Hospitals,” Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of America’s largest not-for-profit free-standing pediatric health care systems providing unique expertise in pediatric population health, behavioral health, genomics and health equity as the next frontiers in pediatric medicine, leading to best outcomes for the health of the whole child. Integrated clinical and research programs, as well as prioritizing quality and safety, are part of what allows Nationwide Children’s to advance its unique model of care. Nationwide Children’s has a staff of more than 14,000 that provides state-of-the-art wellness, preventive and rehabilitative care and diagnostic treatment during more than 1.7 million patient visits annually. As home to the Department of Pediatrics of The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Nationwide Children’s physicians train the next generation of pediatricians and pediatric specialists. The Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital is one of the Top 10 National Institutes of Health-funded free-standing pediatric research facilities. More information is available at NationwideChildrens.org.