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. 2020 Feb 8;22(2):e16538.
doi: 10.2196/16538.

Outcomes of a Heart Failure Telemonitoring Program Implemented as the Standard of Care in an Outpatient Heart Function Clinic: Pretest-Posttest Pragmatic Study

Patrick Ware  1 , Heather J Ross  2   3   4 , Joseph A Cafazzo  1   5   6 , Chris Boodoo  5 , Mikayla Munnery  5 , Emily Seto  1   5
Affiliations

Outcomes of a Heart Failure Telemonitoring Program Implemented as the Standard of Care in an Outpatient Heart Function Clinic: Pretest-Posttest Pragmatic Study

Patrick Ware et al. J Med Internet Res. .

Abstract

Background: Telemonitoring (TM) can improve heart failure (HF) outcomes by facilitating patient self-care and clinical decisions. The Medly program enables patients to use a mobile phone to record daily HF readings and receive personalized self-care messages generated by a clinically validated algorithm. The TM system also generates alerts, which are immediately acted upon by the patients' existing care team. This program has been operating for 3 years as part of the standard of care in an outpatient heart function clinic in Toronto, Canada.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the 6-month impact of this TM program on health service utilization, clinical outcomes, quality of life (QoL), and patient self-care.

Methods: This pragmatic quality improvement study employed a pretest-posttest design to compare 6-month outcome measures with those at program enrollment. The primary outcome was the number of HF-related hospitalizations. Secondary outcomes included all-cause hospitalizations, emergency department visits (HF related and all cause), length of stay (HF related and all cause), and visits to the outpatient clinic. Clinical outcomes included bloodwork (B-type natriuretic peptide [BNP], creatinine, and sodium), left ventricular ejection fraction, and predicted survival score using the Seattle Heart Failure Model. QoL was measured using the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLHFQ) and the 5-level EuroQol 5-dimensional questionnaire. Self-care was measured using the Self-Care of Heart Failure Index (SCHFI). The difference in outcome scores was analyzed using negative binomial distribution and Poisson regressions for the health service utilization outcomes and linear regressions for all other outcomes to control for key demographic and clinical variables.

Results: Available data for 315 patients enrolled in the TM program between August 2016 and January 2019 were analyzed. A 50% decrease in HF-related hospitalizations (incidence rate ratio [IRR]=0.50; P<.001) and a 24% decrease in the number of all-cause hospitalizations (IRR=0.76; P=.02) were found when comparing the number of events 6 months after program enrollment with the number of events 6 months before enrollment. With regard to clinical outcomes at 6 months, a 59% decrease in BNP values was found after adjusting for control variables. Moreover, 6-month MLHFQ total scores were 9.8 points lower than baseline scores (P<.001), representing a clinically meaningful improvement in HF-related QoL. Similarly, the MLHFQ physical and emotional subscales showed a decrease of 5.4 points (P<.001) and 1.5 points (P=.04), respectively. Finally, patient self-care after 6 months improved as demonstrated by a 7.8-point (P<.001) and 8.5-point (P=.01) increase in the SCHFI maintenance and management scores, respectively. No significant changes were observed in the remaining secondary outcomes.

Conclusions: This study suggests that an HF TM program, which provides patients with self-care support and active monitoring by their existing care team, can reduce health service utilization and improve clinical, QoL, and patient self-care outcomes.

Keywords: heart failure; mHealth; telemedicine; telemonitoring; virtual care.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: HR, JC, and ES are considered inventors of the Medly system under the intellectual property policies of the UHN and may benefit from future commercialization of the technology by the UHN.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Pages of the Medly app showing the incomplete morning card with required readings, the symptoms questionnaire, and personalized self-care feedback after all 4 readings were taken and processed by the algorithm.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Patient profile in the Web-based Medly clinician dashboard and an example of an email alert message.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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