Hans van den Heuvel

or arm circumference> 42 cm. Participants were only included if they could read and speak the Dutch language and had access to a smartphone or tablet with internet connection. This study was exempted from approval of the Medical Ethics Committee of the University Medical Center in Utrecht (reference number 17/424), as the Committee confirmed that the Dutch Medical Research Involving Human Subjects Act (WMO) did not apply to this study. The telemonitoring platform After providing informed consent for the study, the subjects were granted access to the secured platform. The Luscii platform (by Focuscura, The Netherlands in collaboration with UMC Utrecht) is accessible through an app for iOS and also through a secured portal in a browser on any device (smartphone, tablet, computer). It contains an educational page with patient information on hypertension in pregnancy and hospital-specific contact information. Subjects were trained to obtain correct measurements with the iHealth Track, an automated non-invasive oscillometric device which has been validated for use in pregnancy.8 Automatically transferred to the app through Bluetooth, single measurements can be checked and sent to the platform’s dashboard and trend graph. Written instructions on how to measure and use the app were provided at study start. Figure 1: Impressions of the Luscii cVitals app for use in prenatal care. Left: Actions screen of the app with buttons to measure vital signs and to fill out the symptom score list. Right: in the Measurements screen of the app participants can review their own data visualized in trend graphs. CHAPTER 4 56