Remote blood pressure monitoring app launched for pregnant women

Sensyne Health, the UK Clinical AI technology company, has launched BPm-Health to help pregnant women monitor blood pressure remotely in response to the UK government guidelines for all pregnant women to follow stringent social distancing and minimise face-to-face contact.

BPm-Health will be offered free to the NHS for one year to support hospital maternity services during the coronavirus pandemic. The formal launch of the product comes after recruiting  3,000 participants for a multicentre trial (BuMP) involving 15 NHS Trusts, led by the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford. The BuMP app was transferred to Sensyne Health earlier this year and re-engineered under the company’s Quality Management System.

BPm-Health is one of three apps listed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (RCOG) in its recent guidance ‘Self-monitoring of blood pressure in pregnancy’.

The announcement follows the high interest and uptake by the NHS of Sensyne Health’s offer, announced on 27 March 2020, to provide GDm-Health, a remote monitoring system for the management of diabetes in pregnancy, free to the NHS for one year.

Lord Paul Drayson, CEO of Sensyne Health, said: “This is now the launch of a second Sensyne product in the field of women’s health and our fourth in the area of remote patient monitoring. Sensyne is seeing increasing demand for its products and technology as healthcare systems adapt to the current situation and make plans to digitise quickly for a post-COVID-19 future.”

There has been an increasing recognition of the acceptability and benefits of self-monitoring of blood pressure during pregnancy (see references below). The COVID-19 pandemic is now increasing the need for healthcare professionals to advocate blood pressure self-monitoring in order to reduce face-to-face consultations for pregnant whilst maintaining care for the woman and her baby.

BPm-Health aims to help expectant mothers to self-monitor their blood pressure, communicating results to their healthcare team remotely rather than at face-to-face clinic appointments. Women are sent alerts when it is time to take a reading, and can then record data on the patient app. The app displays RCOG advice on what women should do dependent on the results submitted.

Dr Lucy Mackillop , chief medical officer of Sensyne Health and consultant obstetric physician at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “As a practicing consultant obstetric physician, I’m acutely aware that the pandemic is a cause of worry for expectant mothers as access to antenatal and postnatal services has been modified and some face-to-face appointments have been postponed.

“This technology adds an additional tool for women’s heath, helping the NHS remotely manage pregnant women, maintain existing planned clinic appointments and provide the right care both during the COVID-19 pandemic, and long after it. BPm-Health is an excellent accompaniment to the work we have already done with GDm-Health, an award-winning app helping mothers-to-be manage diabetes in pregnancy at home.”