Remote monitoring in heart failure.

Abstract

In the developed world, there has been a substantial increase over several decades in the prevalence of congestive heart failure (CHF), partly as a result of demographic changes. Overall, 1–2% of the adult population has CHF and this increases to ≥10% in the over 70s age group.1 However, hospitalization rates due to CHF are falling,2 and length of hospital stay and in-hospital mortality have also fallen.3 It could be argued that effective outpatient management of CHF through dedicated heart failure clinics, specialist nurses, and general practitioners has played a key role in these positive trends. However, given the significant patient morbidity and the inpatient costs associated with CHF, methods to reduce hospital readmission rates are imperative to alleviate an already overstretched system. Rahimi and colleagues4 present the development and assessment of an easy-to-use, android-based monitoring system to empower patients and reduce readmission rates in a cohort from the Seamless User-centred Proactive Provision Of Risk-stratified Treatment for Heart Failure (SUPPORT-HF) study. Patients were provided with internet-enabled tablets that were connected to commercially available sensors to record blood pressure, heart rate, and weight, and provide alerts to patients to see their doctor or healthcare provider when physiological parameters were perturbed. Although this particular self-management study focused primarily on patient uptake of monitoring … [↵][1]*Corresponding author. Tel: +44 1603 592376, Fax: +44 1603 593752, Email: m.frenneaux{at}uea.ac.uk [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1