Digital Solutions Improving Patient Care and Advancing Sustainability of Health Systems

Prenatal care provider communication is increasingly scarce and brief. Preventative health interventions, such as prenatal mobile health (mHealth) tools are critical for the sustainability of health systems, such as increasing access to care through cost-effective counselling and reducing the need for resource and emissions intensive acute care services. Prenatal mHealth tools show promise and provide low-cost opportunities to improve the health and well-being of mothers and infants such as preventing a range of behavior related maternal complications including gestational weight gain. Excessive gestational weight gain is one significant health challenge for pregnant women, increasing the risk of adverse outcomes for both mother and child including hypertension, gestational diabetes, and preeclampsia, congenital anomalies, delivery of a large-for-gestational-age infant, as well as infant susceptibility to disease.  

mHealth applications play a critical role in the sustainability of health systems, particularly for improving access to healthcare, individualized behavioral counselling for disease management, cost-effective interventions, and reduce healthcare costs by preventing unnecessary hospital visits and readmissions.  

Organizations can leverage digital health solutions such as mHealth applications to advance collection of real-time data, disease surveillance, outbreak response and emergency preparedness, and health education campaigns. Researchers can work with organizations to identify evidence-based mHealth tools to streamline healthcare delivery and data-driven decision-making to optimize patient care and improve social, financial, and environmental sustainability of healthcare delivery.  

W&W Implementation Lead, Dr. Rebecca Liu, discusses the potential of mHealth application SmartMoms Canada, as a sustainable healthcare solution for supporting prenatal health needs of mothers through personalized behavioral counselling for nutrition and mental health and prevention of excessive gestational weight gain.