Order Cuff Kits™ for Your Patients

The Need

As many as one in twelve pregnancies are affected by hypertensive disorders of pregnancy like preeclampsia. In some regions of the country, 15-20% of pregnancies are affected. With the expansion of telehealth during the COVID pandemic, pregnant patients may not be attending all of their prenatal and postpartum visits in person. This means that blood pressure screening, recommended throughout pregnancy[i], proteinuria assessments, and a review of signs and symptoms may not happen for thousands of women each day. We also know that racial disparities have been exacerbated during the COVID pandemic. This telehealth-friendly environment provides an excellent opportunity to improve patient-provider communications and maternal healthcare practices now and for the long-term by giving women a simple, yet innovative tool to actively participate in their healthcare.

Enter the Cuff Kit™

As a first step to address the need for self-monitored blood pressure, the Preeclampsia Foundation launched the Cuff Kit™ to make self-measured blood pressure cuffs with educational materials available to all pregnant and postpartum women at risk of developing preeclampsia and other hypertensive disorders of pregnancy – especially to our most vulnerable populations.

The kit includes:

• A pregnancy-validated automatic blood pressure monitoring device
• Instructions sheet with access to online video
• Paper blood pressure tracking log
• Signs and symptoms of preeclampsia sheet
• Signs and symptoms of postpartum preeclampsia education sheet
• Signs and symptoms magnet
• “Still at Risk” rubber bracelet
• Patient feedback link

Purchase Cuff Kits

Introducing the "Check Know Share" Self-Measured Blood Pressure Education Kit

Does your facility already have blood pressure cuffs, but not the patient education materials on preeclampsia signs and symptoms or how to take their own blood pressure? We are now offering a second great option for your pregnancy and postpartum self-measured blood pressure program through our "Check Know Share" Self-Measured Blood Pressure Education Kit! Great for programs that are already accessing blood pressure cuffs through other means, this wrap-around kit gives you everything your patient needs to know how to accurately take their blood pressure:

• Instructions sheet with access to online training video and patient feedback link
• Paper blood pressure tracking log
  
• Signs and symptoms of preeclampsia sheet
• Signs and symptoms of postpartum preeclampsia education sheet
• Signs and symptoms magnet
• “Still at Risk” postpartum rubber alert bracelet

Purchase the SMBP Education Kits

Interested in providing the Cuff Kit™ to your patients?

Participating providers must be able to:

1. Quickly and readily communicate with participating patients, utilizing telehealth as needed;
2. Prioritize distribution to highest risk, especially vulnerable women with lower ability to procure their own BP cuff (i.e., Individual risk factors include chronic hypertension, history of preeclampsia, obesity, age (35+), autoimmune disorders; as well as population-level risk factors such as black, Native American, or rural women);
3. Commit to provide quarterly feedback to help us assess the impact of this initiative. Please see our questions here, so you can implement systems to collect this data.

The Cuff Project: Our Strategic Plan

The ability for all women to access healthcare during and after pregnancy has been further challenged by COVID-19, but the application of home monitoring and telehealth as an important option has garnered considerable attention. (Check out one woman's story of how a self-measured blood pressure cuff helped her detect her own preeclampisa as featured on CNN Health.) Although the Cuff Kit is an important and urgent first step, our view of this solution extends beyond the emergency response to COVID-19. There is immediate need to fund projects related to this entire scope of work:

1. Purchase and provide additional Cuff Kits, coupled with telehealth options, to support high-risk, low resource women across the US.
2. Collect data, analyze and publish results of self-monitored and remote blood pressure measurement programs in pregnancy and the postpartum period. Outcome measurements should include maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity, healthcare costs, impact on racial disparities.[ii]
3. Technical evaluation and validation of current home-monitoring devices/services for use in pregnancy, with secondary validation for preeclamptic pregnancies.[iii]
4. Assess policies and drive regulatory and clinical changes, as needed, to add self-monitored and remote blood pressure measurements to obstetrics standards of care.
5. Advocacy efforts with public and private insurers to universally reimburse for home-monitored blood pressure measurement for all pregnant and postpartum women.

[i] JAMA. 2017;317(16):1661-1667. doi:10.1001/jama.2017.3439

[ii] Oral presentation at the 39th Annual Pregnancy Meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Las Vegas, NV, Feb 11-16, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajog.2019.05.011

[iii] Bello N. Hypertension. 2018;71:326-335. DOI: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.117.10295