The Use of Home Telemonitoring for Heart Failure Management Among Hispanics, Non-Hispanic Blacks, and Non-Hispanic Whites

Heart failure (HF) is ranked as one of the leading causes of hospitalizations and mortality among adults of all racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Telemonitoring, as a home care intervention for HF management, has been used across all groups although the benefit for Hispanics has not been established. The purpose of this retrospective, quantitative study was to determine the differences in hospital readmission between Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White patients with HF who either received or did not receive home telemonitoring services from a home care agency in Connecticut. A purposive sample of 138 records of patients admitted between January 1, 2012, and June 30, 2017, with a diagnosis of HF provided the data for the study. Data were analyzed by conducting simple and multiple logistic regression analyses. The key findings showed that Hispanics who used telemonitoring were almost four times less likely to be readmitted to the hospital compared with Hispanics who did not use telemonitoring (p = .04). Race, age, gender, and insurance were not significant predictors of readmissions (p > .05). The findings from this study may provide healthcare providers with a better understanding of the outcomes of home telemonitoring for treating adult Hispanic patients with HF.