Session S24.4

Validation of a Flexible and Innovative Home Platform for the Monitoring of Heart Failure Patients: First Results

A Sciacqua, A Gualtieri, F Perticone, M Valentini, A Faini,
G Parati, G Zacharioudakis, F Chiarugi*, C Assimakopoulou,
M Stratakis, P Meriggi, M Di Rienzo

Foundation for Research and Technology
Heraklion, Greece

During the clinical validation of HEARTFAID, a platform of services for the medical-clinical management of heart failure within elderly population, performed in several EU sites, special attention was paid to test Nurse@Home, a flexible and innovative application for the home monitoring of heart failure patients. This paper is focused on the validation performed in the sites of Catanzaro and Milan, Italy.
In both validation sites, according to clinical protocols approved by the Institutions Ethics Committees, selected patients, compliant with the inclusion criteria, given written informed consent, were enrolled into the HEARTFAID platform and assigned to a home monitoring phase. 11 patients with NYHA II-III class of chronic heart failure were enrolled in Catanzaro, while 7 with NYHA II-III class heart failure of ischemic origin in Milan. Daily home measurements, performed between 8 and 10 AM, included assessment of body temperature, body weight, respiratory rate, sitting blood pressure and heart rate by validated devices. Additionally, subjects were requested weekly to fill in the Minnesota questionnaire on quality of life. In Catanzaro, all patients performed data entry for all home measurements, but for 3 patients Nurse@Home was configured allowing automatic data entry for blood pressure, heart rate and body weight by using appropriate Bluetooth devices. In Milan, one patient entered such values at home into the Nurse@Home, while 3 patients were contacted by phone by hospital medical personnel, which were responsible also for data entry in the Nurse@Home. In the other patients, ECG and respiration were assessed for 3 minutes every day by an innovative platform including a textile-based signal monitoring system, named MagIC, and a touchscreen PC running software applications for data reception from MagIC and for collection of additional measurements.
All enrolled patients respected the clinical protocol and correctly completed the procedures for the acquisition of all requested measurements. The flexible home monitoring, irrespective of the sensors used and of the transmission modality to the HEARTFAID platform, was generally well accepted and only minor difficulties were encountered. In Catanzaro, the evaluation of data coming from Nurse@Home was also useful to check two possible cases of decompensation. In a patient, the employment of anti-inflammatory drugs produced consequently an increase in systolic pressure and, in another one, who showed a body weight increase, it was discovered he had suspended the diuretic therapy.
The first results obtained put in evidence how the readiness of medical interventions on changes of the monitored parameters could be very important in order to prevent hospital readmission and to reduce health costs. Even though the system needs further refinements, the average usability, the number of tests performed satisfactorily and the satisfaction of most users contribute to a substantially positive evaluation.

(Abstract Control Number: 245)