Investigating the Effectiveness of Telehealth as an Intervention to Supplement Traditional Care of Cardiovascular Disease

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide, causing an estimated 17.8 million deaths in 2017, corresponding to 330 million years of life lost with another 35.6 million years lived with disability (Mensah et al., 2019). Within the United States CVD results in a large economic burden as well with nearly $149 billion spent annually on treating patients with the condition, accounting for approximately 17% of the national health expenditure (Trogdon et al., 2007). With the need for alternative methods of care delivery, particularly during and following the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth has been a strong focus as a potential solution. Previous systematic reviews have suggested telehealth would be effective for CVD patients, but they have not focused on cost-effectiveness along with health outcome measures. To evaluate those outcomes, this review aimed to summarize the current literature regarding telehealth usage with CVD, focusing on cost-effectiveness, quality of life and patient outcomes. A rapid review process was implemented with one reviewer, retrieving studies from two databases. This review included five research studies, each of which found positive associations between telehealth and patient outcomes, particularly regarding cost-effectiveness and quality of life. Due to the small sample size of the included studies, definitive conclusions cannot be drawn, however there is an indication that telehealth would be an effective replacement or supplement to traditional care. Future research should consider using a comprehensive systematic review utilizing additional databases to incorporate more studies while continuing to focus on cost-effectiveness and feasibility of telehealth