Development and clinical application of a telemedicine support system in the field of perinatal patient management.

In recent years, perinatal patient management has been greatly improved due to the advance of medical technologies in various fields. The primary objectives of perinatal patient management are to discover signs and symptoms of fetal asphyxia and threatened premature delivery at an early stage and to initiate treatment as soon as possible. For this purpose, continuous monitoring of the fetal heart rate and uterine contractions is most effective. We developed a telemedicine support system for pregnant women and evaluated it to see if that makes it possible 1) to manage pregnant women monitored at home in the same way as those who visit hospitals on an ambulatory basis, and 2) to prevent adverse events in women in a high-risk pregnancy. The findings obtained in the present study showed that this system is useful for both purposes. Perinatal telemedicine is expected to progress significantly in the next few years, although there are a number of issues that need to be resolved in this area.