A smart way to manage diabetes in pregnancy.

Even as a highly skilled obstetrics professional, managing conditions like diabetes and hypertension in pregnancy is challenging. Maternal mortality rates continue to trend downward, but there remains a need to provide targeted interventions, especially in disparate communities.¹

Providers are finding innovative ways to connect with high-risk patients, and we know that every touchpoint makes an impact. Technology like apps, digital platforms, and telemedicine can support pregnancies in the following ways: 

• Increasing overall education
• Expanding access to care 
• Detecting complications and risk
• Enhancing patient engagement and self-management of conditions, and
• Monitoring metrics between in-office visits

High-risk patients with preeclampsia, hypertension, diabetes, advanced age, pre-existing conditions, or a history of complications can all benefit from key technologies designed to improve outcomes.

Below, you’ll find the different modes of technology that can elevate the care you provide for high-risk pregnancies.

1. Remote Patient Monitoring 

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) involves reviewing data you receive from your patients and subsequently contacting the patient to address any concerns or notify them of treatment adjustments.

Data that can be captured remotely through Bluetooth technology includes glucose, blood pressure, and weight. When the patient shares this data with your office, you review and contact the patient via telephone, video, or face-to-face. 

One of the major benefits of utilizing RPM is that you can generate revenue doing the review and interventions you are performing already! (Get our RPM billing guide here)

Patients report high levels of satisfaction and increased knowledge when participating in a monitoring program.² Easy-to-use tools boost the experience and expand the avenues through which patients and providers connect and engage.

2. Patient Tracking and Apps

Remote monitoring is made possible through digital monitors and sensors that measure data. Fortunately, this generation of moms is comfortable using mobile pregnancy apps, making phones a viable interface for enhancing prenatal care. 

When combined with wearables like rings, watches, monitors, and biosensors, we have continual access to real-time data to detect trends and provide immediate and clinically significant interventions.

Using mobile tracking to inform clinical decisions and patient communication can help increase access to care and improve outcomes in many perinatal and postnatal cases.³ Plus, app-based interventions can be an effective way to increase self-management skills in high-risk pregnancies complicated by conditions like gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).⁴

3. Artificial Intelligence

What if you could detect complications before they happen? Or stratify risk to prioritize care? Enter artificial intelligence (AI). Machine learning and data-driven healthcare may be the wave of the future. Algorithms can help support treatment decisions in all sorts of conditions, including pregnancy.⁵

From use in fetal ultrasound⁶, detection of neonatal hypoglycemia⁷, and symptom trackers in mobile apps, there’s a good chance your obstetrics care is already being impacted by AI. AI can take data and classify risk to better detect maternal health needs and optimize patient care.⁸

4. Telehealth 

If a patient is initially seen from the first trimester, they may have an average of 13 visits, more if the patient is high-risk and requires additional monitoring. Telehealth options can make some of these interactions more convenient while maintaining the human connection.

Of course, in-person visits are essential to build trust and rapport. But the addition of telehealth can enhance the patient experience. 

Patients who have used a hybrid model of care with in-person and virtual visits report that travel time and work absences decrease while self-management and accountability increase.⁹ Meanwhile, clinics have reduced wait times and no-shows. It’s a win-win!

Technology Takeaways

Incorporating technology into your practice can revolutionize the way you manage high-risk pregnancies. 

Whether it’s to track metrics or increase patient engagement, technology can fit into each pregnancy. Integrating digital health into prenatal care is a cost-effective way to enhance patient knowledge, promote birth preparedness, and improve access to care.¹⁰ 

LilyLink: Multiple Channels of Technology to Streamline GDM Care

There’s an increasing number of tech options available for high-risk pregnancy management. If you are looking to improve your GDM workflow, we can help.

Lilylink was designed for gestational diabetes. An intuitive patient-facing app that is easy to connect to glucose monitoring devices will allow your patients to snap a picture to log a meal. We’ve harnessed AI to automate postprandial glucose so you’ll receive real-time data that is more thorough than paper logs. 

In the provider portal, you can log RPM visits and have CPT codes automatically populate, making billing a breeze. If you don’t have the bandwidth to support telehealth visits, we’ve got a team of diabetes educators who can remotely provide comprehensive diabetes education and medical nutrition therapy. Schedule a demo today to learn more.

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References:

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Maternal Mortality Rates in 2023. National Center for Health Statistics. Published April 2024. Accessed April 18, 2025. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2023/maternal-mortality-rates-2023.htm
2. Runesha L, Yordan NT, Everett A, et al. Patient perceptions of remote patient monitoring program for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. Arch Gynecol Obstet. 2024;310(3):1563-1576. doi:10.1007/s00404-024-07580-5
3. Agarwal S, Chin WY, Vasudevan L, et al. Digital tracking, provider decision support systems, and targeted client communication via mobile devices to improve primary health care. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2025;4(4):CD012925. Published 2025 Apr 7. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD012925.pub2
4. Khin TN, Ang WW, Lau Y. The Effect of Smartphone Application-Based Self-Management Interventions Compared to Face-to-Face Diabetic Interventions for Pregnant Women With Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: A Meta-Analysis. J Diabetes Res. 2025;2025:4422330. Published 2025 Mar 1. doi:10.1155/jdr/4422330
5. Lin X, Liang C, Liu J, Lyu T, Ghumman N, Campbell B. Artificial Intelligence-Augmented Clinical Decision Support Systems for Pregnancy Care: Systematic Review. J Med Internet Res. 2024;26:e54737. Published 2024 Sep 16. doi:10.2196/54737
6. Horgan R, Nehme L, Abuhamad A. Artificial intelligence in obstetric ultrasound: A scoping review. Prenat Diagn. 2023;43(9):1176-1219. doi:10.1002/pd.6411
7. Zhang Z, Feng Y, Zhang Y, et al. Predicting Neonatal Hypoglycemia Using AI Neural Networks in Infants from Mothers with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus. Med Sci Monit. 2024;30:e944513. Published 2024 Oct 11. doi:10.12659/MSM.944513
8. Tzimourta KD, Tsipouras MG, Angelidis P, Tsalikakis DG, Orovou E. Maternal Health Risk Detection: Advancing Midwifery with Artificial Intelligence. Healthcare (Basel). 2025;13(7):833. Published 2025 Apr 6. doi:10.3390/healthcare13070833
9. Ghimire S, Martinez S, Hartvigsen G, Gerdes M. Virtual prenatal care: A systematic review of pregnant women's and healthcare professionals' experiences, needs, and preferences for quality care. Int J Med Inform. 2023;170:104964. doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2022.104964
10. Mohamed H, Ismail A, Sutan R, Rahman RA, Juval K. A scoping review of digital technologies in antenatal care: recent progress and applications of digital technologies. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2025;25(1):153. Published 2025 Feb 13. doi:10.1186/s12884-025-07209-8

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