Home Monitoring of Pregnant Women with Complications

The telemedical solution empowers pregnant women with complications to take greater responsibility for their own care.

- THE PROJECT HAS BEEN COMPLETED -

More Reassurance, Flexibility, and Personal Responsibility for Pregnant Women with Complications

Before the end of 2020, all maternity wards in Denmark will offer telemedical home monitoring for pregnant women with complications.

Rather than attending additional midwife check-ups, pregnant women can monitor their own and their fetus’s condition at home and submit readings to the hospital. The service will be offered to those pregnant women who, through the assessment process, are deemed suitable for home monitoring.

The agreement on telemedical home monitoring is part of the 2018 Financial Agreement (ØA2018), established between the government and the Danish Regions. The responsibility lies at the regional level, and in Region of Southern Denmark, Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark has taken on the role of project manager.

The agreement builds on the positive experiences from the Clinical Integrated Home Monitoring (KIH) of pregnant women with complications at Aarhus University Hospital, as well as a business case that highlights both the qualitative and economic effects of a national rollout of telemedical home monitoring for pregnant women with complications.

The clinical staff at Aarhus University Hospital indicate that by using telemedical home monitoring they can deliver the same or even better quality of care to the pregnant women who are eligible for this treatment method.

The pregnant women with complications are also satisfied with the telemedical solution, as it contributes to increased reassurance and flexibility throughout their course of care, in addition to providing them with greater competence and opportunity to take more responsibility for their own treatment.

Vision

The vision in Region of Southern Denmark is to prioritize telemedical home monitoring for pregnant women with complications, empowering them and enhancing their autonomy. Additionally, the solution aims to optimize efficiency, allowing healthcare staff to dedicate more capacity and focus to other tasks.

Purpose

Telemedical home monitoring in Region of Southern Denmark aims to provide pregnant women with complications the option to monitor from home, ensuring professional quality while remaining cost-neutral.

Objectives

The initiative is expected to offer pregnant women greater flexibility, allowing measurements to be taken at a time convenient for the individual.

At the maternity wards in the Region of Southern Denmark, the objective is to optimize staff workflows by reorganizing working hours. This approach aims to reduce the time allocated to routine measurements, thereby allowing healthcare professionals to dedicate more attention to delivering personalized care, support, and guidance tailored to the needs of pregnant women.

Deliverables

In February 2019, the analysis phase was completed. The project has since transitioned from the analysis phase to the procurement phase, with the Region of Southern Denmark leading the partnerships collaborating for the procurement of CTG devices for home monitoring.

The implementation of a solution with CTG has been launched at four maternity sites in Region of Southern Denmark. This is to ensure that guidelines are prepared, trial runs are carried out, as well as preparing the organization for the overall telemedical home monitoring solution. The maternity sites are responsible for developing local implementation plans with detailed workflow descriptions and training schedules. Home monitoring will become part of “Mit Sygehus”, an app for patients located in the Region of Southern Denmark.

A steering group has been established in the project, where the region’s four maternity sites are represented together with Medico-IT. Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark will ensure that the steering group is continuously informed about the project and that communication is maintained with the other project stakeholders.

Health Innovation Centre of Southern Denmark has taken responsibility as project leader and is responsible for ensuring the realization of the implementation of home monitoring – both in relation to the technical infrastructure and solution, as well as the change management required during the implementation process.