Tracking fetal health for a dozen or so pregnant mothers has become possible for a single attending physician without his or her roaming the seven maternity rooms of Sutter Amador Hospital.

Electronics equipment worth close to $200,000 is being installed at the facility. Using it, fetal heart rates can be viewed on a single screen in the cases of each of the hospital's maternity patients. Local civic groups and private donors raised more than $60,000 through a long-term effort by the Sutter Amador Hospital Foundation in order to buy the central fetal monitoring system, according to Laurie Chavoen, foundation manager.

"It took about nine months," Chavoen said.

"A pregnancy!" quipped Laura Cooper, manager of the hospital's birth center.

Such systems are comparatively rare in rural areas, hospital officials said. Sacramento and Auburn may house the nearest hospitals already featuring the system, they said.

The hospital's parent company, Sutter Health, matched with an additional $60,000, offsetting the bulk of the equipment's total cost. The system will be installed within weeks, officials said.

"Currently, if you're not in the patient's room, you can't see all the data," Cooper said. "We want to know how that (fetus) is tolerating labor. Is its heart rate going down? Is it getting improper oxygenation because the placenta is not functioning properly? Is there tachycardia, a real high heart rate for a long time?"

An additional ability the system gives a physician is to see a mother's contraction pattern "in real time," although the doctor is not present with the patient, Cooper said.

The equipment will aid in the care of the approximately 27 maternity patients the hospital cares for per month, said spokeswoman Jody Boetzer.