HCA East Florida

By Alfredo Arango
Medical Editor

The anxiety that some mothers-to-be experience during labor when their obstetrician/gynecologist is not with them all the time, has now been overcome thanks to a new technology which enables the doctor to monitor from his mobile phone the vital signs of both the mother and the child about to be born.

“Despite the obstetrician’s physical absence during labor which may last several hours, the patient can now rest assured that her doctor is observing and evaluating her condition at all times. This is possible thanks to a new system called AirStrip OB; it is an application that is installed in iPhone or Blackberry, through which we obstetricians may now have constant access via Internet to the vital signs of the patient in the labor and delivery room, the fetal status and labor progression or lack of progression,” says Dr. Tomás Marimón, obstetrician/gynecologist affiliated with Kendall Regional Medical Center, in Miami, Florida.

The specialist explains that he can see on his phone the mother’s blood pressure, how many centimeters she has dilated, and the baby’s condition at any given moment. In addition, he can observe how they have progressed during the last four hours. This lets him know the precise moment he must be present to assist in the delivery.

“If I have a patient in active labor, I am monitoring her via my mobile phone every 15 or 20 minutes. The permanent monitoring, for example, of the patient’s frequency and intensity of the contractions as well as nursing notes, allows me to predict certain situations that may arise and proceed accordingly. It’s fantastic,” says Dr. Marimón, who adds that the system is so intelligent that it alerts the degree of dilation using different colors to clearly advise how close the patient is to delivery.”

In the past, obstetricians depended on a nurse in the labor and delivery room to call them to inform them how the patient was doing, or else they themselves had to call the nurses to find out for themselves. Now, they can observe the vital signs, the labor pattern, and fetal status on their mobile phone as if they themselves were looking at the monitor which is usually beside the patient’s bed.

The monitoring system via Internet does not mean that the patient depends only on it in order to receive the necessary medical attention. If the doctor who is monitoring his patient by phone should have a mishap and not be able to continue the follow up or communicate with the hospital, the hospital staff members, who are standing by and performing their own monitoring, give the patient the attention she requires. This means that the AirStrip system facilitates monitoring long-distance, but it does not replace the support base that is in the hospital to assist in the delivery or any emergency that may arise during same.

Internet monitoring is also useful not only during labor, but also during certain tests that are performed under some circumstances to evaluate the baby’s condition.

The manufacturers of this new technology explain it this way: “AirStrip OB delivers vital patient waveform data — including fetal heartbeat and maternal contraction patterns — in virtual real-time directly from the hospital labor and delivery unit to a doctor’s mobile wireless device. This application gives physicians the ability to closely monitor patients 24/7 when the demands of their day necessitate their periodic absence from the labor and delivery unit. Additional patient information such as nursing notes, vital signs and order results are featured on AirStrip OB.”

For further information, write to INTL@hcahealthcare.com; call 305-222-6750; or visit hcainternationalhealth.com.

 
Alfredo Arango is a medical writer and international media consultant who has been affiliated with HCA East Florida Division for the past eight years. Arango has interviewed/photographed doctors and patients at 12 hospitals in South Florida, writing and publishing these stories in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as locally. He previously worked as a journalist at El Nuevo Herald/TheMiami Herald, People en Español and Univision TV Network.