Babyscripts, a virtual care platform specializing in obstetrics management, announced today the acquisition of the provider-delivered pregnancy app iBirth in an effort to flesh out its enterprise offering and further drive patient engagement.

As part of the deal, the iBirth team will be joining Babyscripts’ team with the app’s CEO and cofounder Judith Nowlin taking on the new role of chief growth officer. No further terms of the Q2 acquisition were disclosed.

“One of the things we’re seeing in the market is an urgency to remote monitor patients [and] put them under full-care models, and then physicians can reorient their time as they manage risk,” Juan Pablo Segura, cofounder and president of Babyscripts, told MobiHealthNews. “But one of the things we’re also seeing is a deep desire to really understand the patient as a consumer. That means engaging them, understanding their behavior, understanding why they’re seeing that physician, why they’re seeking care from that provider.

“One of the things that we’ve seen with iBirth is they have a mobile experience for pregnant women that is incredibly robust, covering nutrition, videos, informative and powerful content that really creates an incredible experience for the patient. So from our perspective, we’re trying to not just offer virtual care, but also help our customers really understand their patient, their consumer, while they’re going through their pregnancy. iBirth is going to give us that ability.”

Babyscripts’ platform offers providers a digital patient management dashboard with data collected through connected devices such as scales, blood pressure cuffs, and a patient mobile app. From these, the platform delivers insights identifying which patients may require a follow up or intervention.

Currently the company collects an average of 2.5 and 1.5 weight and blood pressure readings weekly, Segura said. By incorporating iBirth’s consumer app, his company expects a 500 to 600 percent increase in their weekly app usage, offering another source of data that can be leveraged to improve patient outcomes.

“Babyscripts is already sitting on probably one of the most robust and data-rich pregnancy databases that exists on the planet,” he said. “Think about, from a population health perspective, understanding why certain diseases like preeclampsia, the impact of weight coaching and weight counseling and more data-centric targeting for pregnant women. … We really see this as a huge opportunity for us to get even better at getting data points, detecting problems, and sharing that back with the physician.”

This focus on engagement and the resulting improved outcomes is key to how Segura sees his company moving forward as a health-first platform for providers and their patients.

“We’re focused on being very clinical; really deploying clinical mobile and digital health to really engage patients and detect problems faster,” he said. "That’s something that’s very unique to both of our businesses. There’s a lot of consumer apps out there, but we’re really trying to do is consolidate the clinical market because that’s where we think a lot of the value will be, and needs to be when you think of mobile digital tools in healthcare.”