Utilisation of Digital Monitoring System for Heart Failure Patients: Experience from a Tertiary Healthcare in Bangladesh

Background Many patients with chronic heart failure (HF) experience a reduced health status, leading to readmission after hospitalization despite receiving conventional care. Digital monitoring (DM) approaches aim to improve the early detection of HF decompensations and prevent readmissions. However, knowledge about the impact of telemonitoring on preventing readmissions and mortality. The study aimed to test the feasibility of implementing a digital care platform in a HF clinic and assess its potential benefits to our HF patients with various comorbidities. Methods We conducted a prospective study at United Hospital from April to October, 2024. The DM platform for patient-reported symptoms and weight and blood pressure measurements, phone calls with secondary care nurses, and rapid response to alerts by treating physicians. DM solution data were linked to patient register data onhospital registry. Eligible patients had at least 1 visit the clinic within the last 12 months and self-reported New York Heart Association class I-IV. We excluded patients with terminal renal failure, cancer with a prognosis of 1 year or more, severe cognitive impairment, terminal cirrhosis, and patients who were at high risk of losing follow-up. Results A total of 1536 patients with HF were included in the analysis. The number of patients with at least one hospitalisation (all-cause) during the follow-up was much higher in the PV-groups than in the DM group (40% vs 10%; p = 0.01). The number of inpatient days per patient due to HF decreased by 48% during the DM period (mean 1.2, 95% CI 0.1–2.3 days vs 2.3, 95% CI 1-3.6 days with PV; P = 0.17). The number of emergency care visits decreased significantly during the DM period by 44% (mean 0.7, 95% CI 0.4-1 vs mean 1.3, 95% CI 0.9–1.7 with PV; P = 0.001). Conclusions The results suggest that the telemonitoring solution can reduce hospital-related costs for patients with HF with a recent hospital admission.