Remote monitoring of cardiac implantable devices during COVID-19 outbreak: “keep people safe” and “focus only on health care needs”

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the ability of health care organisations to provide adequate care. We report the experience of a national tertiary electrophysiology centre in the management of patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) through the use of a fully remote follow-up model. Methods We daily and prospectively collected remote monitoring (RM) relevant findings and following clinical actions performed from March 10th to April 3rd 2020, a period of suspension of routine ambulatory activity due to the national lockdown. Results During the study period (25 days), we received 2,215 transmissions from 2,955 devices. Among them, 129 patients reported potential clinically actionable RM observations (event rate: 12.0/1000 patient-week). In 77 patients (60%), RM events triggered a clinical action, but only 5 patients needed an urgent in-hospital access (4 urgent procedures and 1 device reprogramming). Conclusions In the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, RM became an essential tool in healthcare delivery for CIED patients. We observed that RM was effective in “keep people safe” and “focus only on individuals with health care needs”.