Q: Can you tell us about your company and the challenges you are solving within the remote monitoring space?

A: Babyscripts offers a clinically validated obstetrics-specific solution for remote delivery of precision pregnancy care. Through a mobile app and remote monitoring experiences, it targets the problems generated from the critical shortage of obstetrical providers in the U.S., as well as systemic and structural failures that create barriers to care for low-income and minority women. Our solution addresses an outdated model for pregnancy care, social determinants of health barriers and an increasing demand for virtual care solutions. Across the country, hospitals are closing their OB or ED units, making it harder to access quality care for delivery and forcing parents to travel farther for their appointments. Half of rural counties do not have a practicing OB-GYN and more are lacking a midwife.

Q: How does your company differentiate from other remote monitoring vendors?

A: Babyscripts is obstetrics-specific, with over eight years of experience working with OB-GYNs and other maternal health care providers to build a comprehensive maternity care solution that incorporates industry protocols and obstetrics-specific workflows. The Babyscripts solution uses a trigger alert system to communicate actionable data to the patient’s provider, which differentiates it from generalized patient portals that are primarily operational and not clinical. Babyscripts has also been clinically validated through peer-reviewed research and case studies.

Q: What are some of the biggest changes your company has seen around how health systems are approaching remote monitoring since 2020?

A: We saw an immediate increase in demand with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic--from February 2020 to April 2020 our user base increased 600 percent. The industry will never return to the way it was before the pandemic, and health systems are beginning to understand that they need to have a digital health strategy to remain competitive in the post-COVID landscape. We know that most providers got a taste of what virtual/digital medicine could look like through COVID. The main challenge now is scalability, and the industry is going through some growing pains. Most providers that had not fully launched virtual care before the pandemic MacGyvered their way into telemedicine and virtual care. Now they need to scale up, and they’re looking for platforms that can accelerate their digital transformations.

Q: What does an ideal client look like? How are health systems best organized for success in remote monitoring?

A: The decision-makers in a health system--the CIO or CEO, for example--are rarely the providers who will actually use the solution, which can lead to bottlenecks for adoption. An ideal client enlists clinical champions who will get the remainder of the care team on board and educate patients, because a solution is only successful if patients actually use it. Providers aren’t going to champion a solution that increases their workload or doesn’t address their issues. To set themselves up for success, decision-makers must listen to their providers and choose solutions that integrate into their existing workflows and demonstrate measurable outcomes.

Q: What measurable outcomes have you seen from your clients who have prioritized remote monitoring?

A: Babyscripts’ remote monitoring for blood pressure has been instrumental in several life-saving interventions for preeclampsia and postpartum hypertension, and among other outcomes, has demonstrated success across various client sites for the following measures:

• Decrease in OB no-show rates from 45% to 17% 

• Increase in postpartum visit attendance from 13% to 29% within the first 30 days postpartum and increase from 44% to 64% within the first 60 days 

• Improved adherence to HEDIS measures 

• Thirteen-day reduction in average time to detection of preeclampsia

Q: What major functional enhancements and/or product investments are you making in the near term to keep up with the evolution of remote monitoring?

A: In the near term, Babyscripts plans to fully scale up and deploy the market's most comprehensive blood pressure monitoring program for prenatal and postpartum women. In conjunction with the completion of a research study on its efficacy, we are also planning a market-wide deployment of an obstetrics-specific mental health product--the first of its kind on the market. We are also building out infrastructure to meet the needs of payer clients looking to partner with providers to deploy Babyscripts to their members, with features like pregnancy ID, behavioral risk assessments and screenings, rewards programs and community platforms to enable member-to-member interaction.

Q: How is your company partnering with clients as reimbursements and use cases shift?

A: Babyscripts has traditionally sold to care providers, but as health systems feel increasing financial strain, we’re opening up new pathways for reimbursement through payer partnerships that subsidize the cost of Babyscripts at participating systems. Health plans can launch Babyscripts in a partnership with providers to maximize engagement, collect health data and identify risk for pregnant members. Payers and providers both benefit from data-sharing that facilitates a patient-centric approach to care and empowers them to deliver the best resources and services to the patient.

Q: What are the biggest opportunities health systems should be thinking about this year when it comes to remote monitoring?

A: Health systems are facing competition from direct-to-consumer solutions that prioritize user experience. They need to own the digital front door and create a seamless experience for their patients from virtual visits to in-person through integration and interoperability. The digital health ecosystem will be a big part of that--digital health companies that exist solely to serve other digital health companies. Digital marketplace services like Xealth and Redox simplify the process for providers to order and prescribe various digital tools and services directly through the EMR.

Q: How do you see remote monitoring evolving in 2022 and beyond?

A: We’re going to see an expansion of use cases for remote monitoring. Care providers are growing more comfortable with the idea and are increasingly willing to take on more risk and branch out into issues like behavioral health, substance abue and other patient populations with less measurable and manageable outcomes. The rise of direct-to-consumer offerings is already forcing health systems to invest in high-risk and value-based care or run the risk of losing health plans, who are in danger of creating separate networks and giving preferential reimbursement rates to organizations that are willing to shoulder more risks.