Abstract 19154: Impact of Personal ECG Monitoring on Health Care Resource Utilization

Introduction: Atrial fibrillation (AF) monitoring is essential to optimize AF control, reducing the risk of adverse outcomes such as stroke. Traditional noninvasive monitoring options are limited to 30 days. KardiaMobile (KM) are medical-grade, personal ECG devices that record and detect common heart rhythm abnormalities over months to years. This study examined the use of KM to monitor AF and determine its impact on health care resource utilization (HCRU). Methods: This retrospective, observational study used anonymized administrative claims from 2017-2022 and linked to KM users with AF to compare their HCRU to AF patients that did not use KM. The index date for the KM group was the first device use after the first AF claim. The index date of the non-KM group was randomly matched. All-cause HCRU was identified within 1 year after index date. Results: A total of 243,450 AF patients were included with 121,725 in each group. The KM user group was similar to the comparison group in age (mean age 68.1 [SD=10.7] vs 69.1 [10.4]) and gender (62% males in both groups). The percentage of patients that had at least 1 outpatient visit was higher for the KM group (80% vs 64%, p<0.0001), but lower for ER/urgent care visits (28% vs 30%, p<0.0001) and lower for hospitalizations (16% vs 20%, p<0.0001). Among patients with at least 1 hospitalization, KM users had nearly half as many hospitalizations as the comparison group (Figure, p<0.0001). For those that had an ER/urgent care visit, KM users also had significantly less visits (Figure, p<0.0001). Conclusions: AF patients that use a KM personal ECG are more likely to have outpatient visits but have fewer ER/urgent care visits and fewer hospitalizations than those who do not use KM. These results suggest that ER/urgent care and hospitalizations are reduced in AF patients who use KM. Figure. Comparison of utilization in the year following the index date for those with at least one visit in the category