Review of Telemedicine in Heart Failure: Readmission and Mortality from 2018 to 2020

Heart failure ranks as the highest causes for hospital readmission and a presents a sizable financial burden on healthcare systems worldwide. This article reviews the most recent literature concerning the care of heart failure patients and readmission rates using technologies designated as telemedicine. PubMed, CINHAL, and Cochrane Review databases were searched using the terms, “(heart failure of cardiac failure or CHF or chronic heart failure or congestive heart failure) AND (hospital admission or readmission or re hospitalization hospital admission or readmission or re hospitalization) AND (telemedicine or telemonitoring or tele practice or teleconsultation or remote consultation for videoconferencing or virtual visit) NOT (telerehabilitation)”. To best focus on the most recent data available, studies chosen were controlled trials published after 2017. No invasive or software studies were included. Five studies were found to be pertinent to this review. One study compared two telemedicine approaches and no standard of care group with no statistically significant differences in results. Another study reported significant improvement in rehospitalization rates in a telemanagement group. A follow-up on a previous trial showed no significant difference in rehospitalization and all-cause mortality in patients with no further telemedical interventions between 68 to 89 extra months later. One trial found improvements in all-cause mortality and combined cardiovascular hospital admissions and all-cause mortality. A final study compared two telemedicine approaches versus usual care with significant improvement in hospital readmissions for both of the telemedicine approaches