Overall , telemedicine was shown to be beneficial , with home-based teletransmission effectively reducing all-cause mortality and HF-related hospital admission , length of stay and mortality in patients with HF
Telemedicine interventions may be associated with reductions in hospital admission rate and mortality in patients with heart failure ( HF ) .
Telemonitoring with case management for seniors with heart failure.
OBJECTIVE To assess the impact of supplementing nurse case management with Internet-connected telemonitoring on clinical outcomes in an elderly heart failure ( HF ) population . STUDY DESIGN R and omized clinical trial allocating high-risk HF subjects to the telehealth system with case management ( THCM ) versus case management ( CM ) alone . METHODS Medicare Advantage members with HF and recent hospitalization were r and omized to THCM or CM . Consenting participants received THCM for 6 months or the health plan 's usual Medicare specialized CM as long as deemed necessary . The primary outcome measure was a composite of all-cause hospitalization , ED visit , or death . Because only a subset of those who were r and omized consented and participated , the strategies were evaluated as-treated rather than by intention-to-treat , with multivariate adjustment in logistic regression models for confounding introduced by postr and omization exclusions . RESULTS The treated sample size was 164 subjects in THCM and 152 in CM . Treatment arms did not differ significantly for the primary composite outcome ( 45 % for THCM vs 40 % for CM , relative risk 1.18 ; P = .22 ) . Telehealth alerts prompted frequent telephonic contact , increasing THCM case managers ' workload . The participant population overall had 42 % fewer inpatient days during the intervention period compared with the previous year . CONCLUSIONS Despite effective implementation of an Internet-based telehealth intervention in an elderly HF population , there was no discernible impact on overall morbidity or mortality . Notably , limited postr and omization participation decreased power to detect a difference . The reduction in days hospitalized for trial participants overall underscores the benefit of CM for such HF patients
Overall , telemedicine was shown to be beneficial , with home-based teletransmission effectively reducing all-cause mortality and HF-related hospital admission , length of stay and mortality in patients with HF
Telemedicine interventions may be associated with reductions in hospital admission rate and mortality in patients with heart failure ( HF ) .