Smartphone based remote monitoring of heart failure

ChronicHeart Failure (HF) is associated with high morbidity and mortality and represents a huge economic burden to health care systems. Most of these health related-costs are due to recurrent hospitalizations. Telemonitoring provides a window of opportunity to expand the action range of HF Clinics by optimizing its resources, following patients more closely and allowing for early detection of clinical deterioration. This study's objective is to develop a remote monitoring system in two distinct phases. During the first phase, a telemonitoring device based on a smartphone will be developed, as well as a monitoring algorithm that incorporates and processes data collected with the device and a mobile application that will serve as the interface between the patient and his medical caregiver. In the second phase, a randomized telemonitoring trial will be performed: patients from a HF outpatient clinic will be randomized to telemonitoring surveillance or to usual care. These patients will be followed through a 6 month period in order to detect the differences between groups and to evaluate the real benefit of the current telemonitoring system. This work is expected to fulfill the growing need to obtain more insights on remote monitoring of heart failure, providing more knowledge to develop interventions on a multidimensional perspective.