Women affected by complications during pregnancy can now look forward to a higher degree of security and fewer ambulatory controls

Many pregnant women who experience complications are hospitalised for various periods of time or go through quite a lot of ambulatory monitoring. The Danish government and Danish Regions have therefore agreed to offer nation-wide telemedical home monitoring, which allows all pregnant women the possibility of monitoring their complications from home, before the end of 2020.

Good practical experience

For pregnant women who experience complications, telemedicine allows for monitoring of both the woman’s and the fetus’ condition within their own home. This is done via continual submission of various measurements and readings to the hospital. This solution has been in use at Aarhus University Hospital since 2014.

Experiences from Aarhus show that telemedicine not only provides a more significant sense of security for the pregnant women and their relatives; it also allows for more freedom. The pregnant women find that telemedical treatment is more flexible and altogether more manageable to fit into their daily schedule since it reduces the amount of hospital visits. Furthermore, the telemedical solution results in a calmer pregnancy as the patients become better at recognizing, interpreting and reacting to various signals.

For a smaller group of patients, who otherwise would have been hospitalised, this solution means that they get to spend time at home with their families, but without compromising, nor losing, the sense of security that close contact to a hospital and frequent check-ups and monitoring provide.

Telemedicine makes it possible to raise the amount of measurements used to determine the patient’s condition without the usage of additional resources, and, moreover, this contributes to an increase of the level of security the pregnant woman feels.

The solution is set to benefit the whole country

On grounds of the good experiences found at Aarhus University Hospital, the Danish government and the Danish Regions have made the agreement that telemedicine is to be offered to pregnant women experiencing complications on a national scale and this before the end of 2020.

It is expected that telemedicine will be able to help reduce the pressure currently found at this country’s maternity wards, and the analysis of the possibility of extending the offer and making it nation-wide shows that DKK 18.4 million could be saved from this particular area over a period of five years. This is seen as a result of fewer hospitalisations and a reduction of ambulatory controls performed at hospitals. Furthermore, Aarhus University Hospital has been able to free up 40 pct. of their hospital beds intended for pregnant women experiencing complications as a result of the solution’s implementation.