Impact of Heart Failure Telemonitoring on unplanned hospitalization: Findings from the non-invasive cardiac telemonitoring programme

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: None. Background Telemonitoring is an intervention that has shown to improve care of heart failure (HF) patients and thus plays a major role in preventing frequent hospital visits. Purpose This study examined the impact of HF telemonitoring on unplanned hospitalization. Methods Patients admitted to the hospital for HF and who agreed to use the non-invasive telemonitoring system were candidates in the study. It measured body weight, blood pressure and heart rate each day, and an alert was made if they exceeded a certain limit. The study contained data from 97 patients. The primary endpoint was a composite of unplanned cardiovascular hospitalization and all-cause mortality. Patients were classified into three groups: hospitalized (for any of the endpoints) during the telemonitoring period (Group 1 ["monitoring failure"]), hospitalized after the telemonitoring period (Group 2), and not hospitalized (Group 3). Results Median telemonitoring period was 222 [141, 518] days. The number of patients in each group was 18, 18, and 61. Patients in Group 1 were older (75 vs. 63 years, p < 0.001) and had poorer estimated glomerular filtration rate (31 vs. 62 mL/min/1.73m2, p < 0.001) than those in Group 3. Length of hospitalization periods at the endpoint tended to be longer in Group 1 than Group 2 (8.5 [6, 14] vs. 5 [4, 10] days, p = 0.084). Conclusion If heart failure telemonitoring fails to prevent unplanned hospitalization, the length of that hospitalization period may be longer than if the unplanned hospitalization could have been prevented.