A trial to determine the readmission impact of a telemonitoring approach for heart failure patients who had been previously hospitalized reported no positive results, save for one.
One subset of patients who reported better adherence also reported better readmission results, according to the American Journal of Managed Care. Study author Michael K. Ong, MD, PhD, said this may be due to better integration of an intervention with a patient's primary care practice.
Another factor to consider, according to Dr. Ong, is that telemonitoring technology has seen significant improvements since the study period, which was between October 2011 and September 2013. Since that time, the technology has become less intrusive and might be superior to the kind used for the study.
One element of the study that proved a challenge was getting patients to complete calls with nurses to record their daily data from devices. Just over half of the telemonitoring was completed among study participants, and the more adherent patients had better results.