With the increasing incidence and prevalence of heart failure in the United States, the burden imposed on both the patients and healthcare system is becoming increasingly difficult to manage. In 2009, the American Heart Association estimated that there were 15 million office visits and 6.5 million days spent in the hospital due to heart failure. Complex regimens requiring lifestyle alterations make it difficult for patients to adhere to provider recommendations. In an attempt to decrease this burden, the effects of home telemonitoring have been under investigation. An integrated review of the literature was conducted to summarize findings from studies investigating whether home telemonitoring increases patient adherence to prescribed therapy while reducing hospital admissions and readmissions. The search included relevant studies from 2005 to 201 0. A total of eleven studies were reviewed in this thesis. Statistically significant improvements were found in four of the five articles regarding patient adherence. Two of the articles reporting on hospital admissions indicated statistically significant reductions. while the others showed a trend towards a reduction in hospitalizations. Statistically significant decreases were found in hospital readmissions in three of five studies. While the evidence was not strong enough to support broad-scale implementation, telemonitoring can be recommended as a viable adjunct to usual care for some patients. Nurses should be at the forefront for providing patient education and assessing data provided by telemonitoring equipment. Large-scale. replicable studies are recommended to further determine the effectiveness of telemonitoring related to outcomes of heart failure patients.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:honorstheses1990-2015-2090 |
| Date | 01 January 2010 |
| Creators | Pham, Dominic V. |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | HIM 1990-2015 |
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