The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data suggesting that pregnant patients might be at a higher risk for severe illness associated with COVID-19.
CDC has advised that measures to prevent coronavirus infection are needed for pregnant people and their families. Telehealth and virtual care could be a useful measure.
Telemedicine has the potential to bridge the gap between vulnerable pregnant people and their providers without the need for as much in-person exposure.
Matthew Sappern, CEO and president of PeriGen says that when it comes to staff and patient safety, remote telemonitoring can be utilized at facilities as a hub-and-spoke model. Clinicians would be at a central monitoring station meant to track patient health and safety.
In the initial surge of COVID-19 experienced nurses couldn’t go to the bedside due to preexisting conditions or due to being caregivers.
Instead of furloughing the nurses and losing out on their clinical expertise, Sappern said some clients chose to install them at the central monitoring station. They could now be separate from patients and also provide guidance to personnel who weren’t as vulnerable.
CDC statistics reveal that after adjusting for race, age and underlying medical conditions, pregnant people were more likely than nonpregnant people to get admitted to an intensive care unit to get invasive ventilation, to receive extra corporeal membrane oxygenation or to die.
Since there is a potential for remote patient monitoring the next steps would include the approval from U.S. Food and Drug Administration for at-home tools like fetal heart rate recordings.
Israel's Sheba Medical Center at their Women’s Health Innovation Center (WHIC) is planning to launch pilots that concentrate the majority of pregnant care at home. They are inviting many vendors to present options to apply their technology to treat pregnant patients. WHIC aims to provide maximum assessment for patients and their fetuses without physically entering the hospital.