Telehealth in antenatal care: recent insights and advances

BMC Medicine

Review

Stephen Tong¹  Jessica Atkinson¹  Roxanne Hastie¹  Susan Walker¹  Anthea Lindquist¹ 

[1] Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Melbourne, Mercy Hospital for Women, 163 Studley Road, 3084, Heidelberg, VIC, Australia;Mercy Perinatal, Mercy Hospital for Women, Heidelberg, VIC, Australia;

关键词: Telehealth;    Pregnancy;    Antenatal care;    Obstetrics;    Cost-effectiveness;    Maternal outcomes;    Neonatal outcomes;    Consumer satisfaction;    Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12916-023-03042-y

 received in 2023-03-29, accepted in 2023-08-21,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundFor decades, antenatal care in high-resource settings has involved 12–14 face-to-face visits across pregnancy. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many care providers to rapidly embrace telehealth to reduce face-to-face visits. Here we review recent advances in telehealth used to provide antenatal care.Main bodyWe conducted a narrative review examining the impact of telehealth on obstetric care. Two broad types of telehealth are used in antenatal care. The first is real-time telehealth, where consultations are done virtually instead of face-to-face. The second is remote monitoring, where in-clinic physical examinations are replaced with at-home alternatives. These can include blood pressure monitoring, fetal heart rate monitoring, and emerging technologies such as tele-ultrasound. Large cohort studies conducted during the pandemic era have shown that telehealth appears not to have increased adverse clinical outcomes for mothers or babies. However, further studies may be required to confidently conclude rare outcomes are unchanged, such as maternal mortality, serious morbidity, or stillbirth. Health economic studies suggest telehealth has the potential to reduce the financial cost of care provision. Telehealth in antenatal care seems to be acceptable to both pregnant women and healthcare providers.ConclusionAdoption of telehealth technologies may improve the antenatal care experience for women and reduce healthcare expenditure without adversely impacting health outcomes for the mother or baby. More studies are warranted to confirm telehealth does not alter the risk of rare outcomes such as maternal or neonatal mortality.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2023

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