Wireless Tech to Advance Maternal Care

Tech ought to make things faster, better and less expensive, right? Yet too often it seems as though when tech comes in, prices go way up. Particularly in the health care arena. Yet consider this: Fetal and maternal monitoring—(cardiotocography), the measuring of fetal heart rate and uterine contractions—is typically performed in a clinical setting and requires 20-30 minutes per test, of which there could be many during an at-risk pregnancy. Or, as Dr. Joseph Smith, chief medical and science officer at the West Wireless Health Institute (WWHI; westwirelesshealth.org), puts it, standard cardiotocography “typically requires the patient to be tethered to a hospital or clinic bed or making frequent trips to a doctor’s office.”

 
To take out the time and costs associated with standard cardiotocography, WWHI is leveraging technology. Dr. Smith: “Our engineering team integrated proven and low-cost technologies into a wireless prototype that could potentially be applied in home, hospital, or ambulatory settings.”

He’s talking about the Sense4Baby, a non-invasive wireless device that’s presently in the engineering prototype phase. The system is portable and allows connection to a physician via cellular or Internet connection. As Don Casey, WWHI CEO said, “The ability to monitor both maternal and fetal well-being—wherever a patient may be during the course of the day—creates a far more complete picture of their condition.”

“Sense4Baby has the potential to transform the way many high-risk pregnancies are monitored, almost anywhere in the world, by leveraging low-cost-and proven wireless technologies. Our focus on low-cost solutions gives us the opportunity to impact many, more lives and reach expectant mothers who may not otherwise have access to care,” said WWHI chairman and founder Gary West.

WWHI, which was established in March 2009 by the Gary and Mary West Foundation, is dedicated to lowering health care costs by innovating, validating, advocating for, investing in, and commercializing wireless tech for medical applications. Of the some $100-million invested by the foundation into WWHI, more than half is earmarked for internal engineering research. The Sense4Baby is the first engineering prototype to be developed as part of this program.

In other words, money is being invested in tech to make the cost of care go down.

Amazing.