Remote Maternity Care: Fernüberwachung bei Risikoschwangerschaften

This article describes the use of telemedicine, in particular remote home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM), to improve the care of high-risk pregnant women, especially those with hypertensive disorders such as pre-eclampsia. Remote monitoring methods have proven to be safe and effective, to reduce hospitalizations of high-risk pregnant women, and to increase patient satisfaction without increasing complication rates. The PreFree application developed at the Charité, consisting of an algorithm (based on machine learning), a patient app, and a physician application, enables remote monitoring of hypertensive pregnancy disorders as well as precise risk assessment and prediction of pre-eclampsia and associated complications. Initial studies have demonstrated the benefits for the treating physicians, in particular the high accuracy of the algorithm and the improved availability of data. The authors emphasize the potential of remote monitoring methods to optimize the care of pregnant women and call for further multicenter studies on their implementation in clinical practice.