Sense4Baby

CTG monitoring in secondary healthcare

Hospital visits are highly stressful for women with high-risk pregnancies, particularly if the visit has not been scheduled in advance and the woman has to make all sorts of last-minute arrangements. It has been established that this type of stress and hassle affects the unborn child’s heart rate and the mother’s blood pressure: these would likely be lower if the pregnant woman were in the more familiar and relaxed home environment or if the tests were performed by a primary-care physician. This was one of the key drivers behind the development of Sense4Baby.

Avoid hospital appointments and overnight stays

Sense4Baby gives healthcare practitioners the opportunity to monitor patients remotely. The mother-to-be can perform CTGs at home and transmit the data to the cloud. The gynaecologist or specialised nurse can then check the data in real-time or at a later stage and contact the patient if there is a need for medical intervention. This makes it possible to avoid frequent hospital visits and even overnight stays. Sense4Baby allows pregnant women to perform all tests typically performed in the hospital right from their home. This minimises stress and means there is no need for expectant mothers to disrupt their peaceful family life and everyday routines, which benefits both mother and child.

Data securely stored in the cloud

Sense4Baby transmits all data to a securely protected cloud. A link can then be created from the cloud to the Hospital Information System (HIS) or Electronic Patient Record (EPR), giving physicians access to the data either through a web portal or the HIS or EPR.

The business case for telemonitoring

Practitioners in a growing number of medical disciplines are switching to telemonitoring their patients. In addition to offering various patient benefits, there is also a strong business case to be made for telemonitoring: it reduces the number of hospital visits and occupant days. The Dutch Hospitals Association has calculated that the use of our service can save as much as €1550 per high-risk pregnancy. This adds up to potential annual cost savings of €5.4 million for the Netherlands as a whole. We can provide you with sample calculations, so you can find out what the business case might be for your situation.

Using Sense4Baby at home
Women with high-risk pregnancies can, on the recommendation of a secondary-care physician, also use Sense4Baby at home. They are then given instructions on how to apply the pulse oximeter and the maternity belt (fitted with a transducer and a tocodynamometer) and shown how to transmit the data to the cloud.

Since 2015, primary-care obstetricians in the Netherlands are authorised to perform and evaluate CTGs for the pregnant women they are monitoring. This occurs primarily in the following cases:
– Impending post-term pregnancy;
– Lack of foetal movement;
– After a previous external CTG.

Sense4Baby is a mobile CTG monitor that enables primary-care maternity centres to perform the tests themselves and to allow the hospital to check this data remotely if desired. In some cases, this eliminates the need to refer pregnant women to a hospital in case of any doubt: a consultant can check remotely if everything is OK and provide advice as and when necessary.

No more need to see a specialist for a CTG
Pregnant women experience considerable stress when undergoing hospital tests, particularly if they are referred at short notice. Wouldn’t it be convenient if primary-care obstetricians could perform their own CTGs and, in case of any doubt, have the data checked by the hospital? And how much easier would it be if women with high-risk pregnancies could conduct CTGs formerly performed at the hospital right from their home? Well, now they can – as this is exactly what Sense4Baby offers.

Sense4Baby is a mobile device that can be used anywhere.
If a pregnant woman needs to be taken to hospital by ambulance, Sense4Baby can also be used in transit to ensure that monitoring is not interrupted en route.