Patients See Remote Monitoring of Cardioverters as Beneficial

Not all the news about remote monitoring presented at the European Society of Cardiology's ESC Congress 2016 was bad.

In a study called MORE-CARE lead investigator Giuseppe Boriani, MD, PhD, of the University of Modena, Modena, Italy and colleagues said the team's study of heart failure patients had some positive findings.

Though confirming that the monitoring of these patients did not determine that patients lived longer, it did show that those who got the devices--biventricular defibrillators--said they liked the fact that they needed to make fewer trips to physicians' offices or to hospital emergency rooms.

The study looked at over 900 patients who got the devices.

Half were monitored electronically every other week and went to a doctor's office on alternate weeks. The control group had all their health checks done in an office setting.

Boriani said there was no apparent health benefit to the monitoring, but that patients reported saving time and money by being able to skip half of the weekly visits.

"From a patient perspective over the two years it saved them money," he said.

He calculated that there was also a savings to health systems with a 41% reduction in office visits.