Telemonitoring in chronic heart failure

Clinical management of refractory heart failure remains challenging, with a high rate of rehospitalizations despite advances in medical and device therapy. Care can be provided in person, via telehomecare (by telephone), or telemonitoring, which involves wireless technology for remote follow-up. Telemonitoring wirelessly transmits parameters such as weight, heart rate, or blood pressure for review by health-care professionals. Cardiac implantable devices (defibrillators and cardiac resynchronization therapy) also transmit continually interrogated physiological data, such as heart rate variability or intrathoracic impedance, which may be of value to predict patients at greater risk of hospitalization for heart failure. The use of remote monitoring techniques facilitates a rapid and regular review of such data by health-care workers as part of a heart failure management programme. Current evidence supports the feasibility of such an approach but routinely assessed parameters have been shown not to impact patient outcomes. Devices that directly assess cardiac haemodynamic status through invasive measurement of pressures are currently under investigation and could potentially increase the sensitivity and specificity of predicting heart failure events. The current evidence for telemonitoring and remote monitoring, including implantable haemodynamic devices, will be reviewed.