WellSpan, Capital BlueCross To Provide Patients Access to Top Remote Pregnancy Care Through Babyscripts
Babyscripts, the leading virtual care platform for managing obstetrics, will make remote pregnancy care available to pregnant women through a new collaboration between Capital BlueCross and WellSpan Health. This is the latest initiative toward better health outcomes on the part of the health system and insurance provider.
Together through Babyscripts, WellSpan and Capital BlueCross are offering expectant mothers access to crucial prenatal health information throughout pregnancy with weekly tasks, resources, and practice-specific information. The Babyscripts program allows expectant mothers to track and share biometric health data, such as weight and blood pressure levels, with doctors and advanced practice providers in real time through internet-connected devices provided to the patient.
Using Babyscripts, WellSpan providers can quickly and remotely identify warning signs, such as critical changes in blood pressure, that indicate that the mother and the baby may require immediate medical assistance. The mobile app also provides valuable health tips, clinically-approved educational information, gestational-age specific content, customizable provider resources, and other services to assist expectant mothers.
“Bringing together the payer and the provider is a vital step to solving some of the structural difficulties of care coordination,” said Juan Pablo Segura, President and co-founder of Babyscripts. “Making data that is typically available to a provider also available to the payer allows for the earlier identification of potential issues, and is a huge step toward tailoring a patient’s care plan to actually move the needle on outcomes.”
A new report from the BlueCross BlueShield Association found a greater number of women are entering pregnancy with pre-existing conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. The report noted that the number of women experiencing both pregnancy and childbirth complications increased by 31.5% from 2014 to 2018.
By providing Babyscripts’ remote app to patients, WellSpan Health and Capital BlueCross can improve access to much-needed prenatal care and facilitate early identification of complications.
“We know from the data that delays in getting care for underlying health conditions can cause problems with the pregnancy – both for mom and baby,” said Michael Seim, M.D., senior vice president and chief quality officer for WellSpan Health. “Our work with Capital BlueCross is aimed at identifying those conditions and developing a care plan early, so that we can have the best possible outcome for these expectant mothers.”
“This is a terrific way to help WellSpan Health providers use technology to help expectant mothers better connect with their doctors and take care of themselves during pregnancy,” said Dr. Jennifer Chambers, senior vice president and chief medical officer for Capital BlueCross. “When we work together in this way, it means not only better care at this time, but also a better outcome for overall health and a better value for our members’ healthcare dollar.”
Access to Babyscripts for patients and members is one of many initiatives that WellSpan Health and Capital BlueCross have been developing as part of the strategic partnership they announced a year ago. The mutual goal is to improve health and reduce costs for central Pennsylvania employers and healthcare consumers.