Developing a heart failure remote monitoring digital app to empower patients co-produce their care

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board

Heart failure remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the UK and worldwide. Heart failure patients have a 30% mortality rate at 1 year and 60% at 5 years, while 70% of heart failure costs to the NHS are due to hospitalisations. Innovative ways of working are needed to ensure heart failure patients are managed in a timely and evidence-based manner - which has led to the development of a remote monitoring system for heart failure.

A project was initiated in Betsi Cadwaladr UHB to pilot the development and use of remote patient monitoring (RPM) technology to pro-actively manage heart failure patients in their own homes. The Patient App captures health data, such as symptoms, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and weight. This health data can then be reviewed by clinicians via the Portal to help them make decisions and spot early signs of health deterioration and act on them in a timely manner.

There have been a number of highly positive benefits generated during the pilot, which have been corroborated through interviews with the respective clinical leads and recording of care escalation events. There were 12 logged incidents of escalating care - 11 of these were in cases where the patient had not tried to contact healthcare services and care was therefore only escalated as a result of the App. Across the entire pilot of 40 patients, 10 admissions were avoided due to early intervention through the App. The increased clinical confidence that the monitoring platform provided enabled acute teams to expedite discharge.

Overwhelmingly positive patient feedback has been generated and 100% of patients agreed that the software was helpful in improving clinician communication as well as managing their cardiac condition. A longer-term business funding model is now being created, following the successful pilot.

Viki Jenkins

viki.jenkins@wales.nhs.uk