Tele-HF: Yale Heart Failure Telemonitoring Study

NCT ID: NCT00303212

Last Updated: 2020-03-30

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

COMPLETED

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

1660 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2006-03-31

Study Completion Date

2010-07-31

Brief Summary

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The primary purpose of this study is to determine the effectiveness of telemonitoring compared with usual guideline-based care in preventing hospitalization for heart failure patients.

Detailed Description

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Heart failure (HF) is a common, costly condition characterized by recurrent periods of clinical decompensation that often lead to repeated hospitalizations (1, 2). Despite advances in the care of patients with HF, population-based outcomes such as mortality and hospitalization rates have not improved substantially over the past decade (3). Episodic, infrequent, outpatient visits are the only usual opportunities for clinicians to detect and treat early signs of HF decompensation; this constitutes a major gap in the current medical model. Moreover, opportunities for patients to take an active role in managing their own conditions occur infrequently. Disease management has emerged as a possible solution to the need for better patient surveillance and engagement. It typically involves multidisciplinary efforts to improve the quality and efficiency of care for patients with chronic conditions, with interventions designed to foster adherence of clinicians to scientific guidelines and patients to treatment plans. However, traditional disease-management programs are generally resource-intensive (often relying on nurse case management), difficult to scale for a large population, and inefficient in providing daily patient monitoring.

Telemonitoring, which bridges clinicians and patients with communication technology, holds promise for closing the gap in HF care (4). This technology has the potential for standardized, widespread implementation (and long-term maintenance) in the near future because it can be easily applied to large patient populations and integrated into the current medical care system. Supporting this potential, preliminary evaluations have suggested that telemonitoring is feasible across a broad spectrum of typical HF patients, relatively inexpensive on a per-patient basis, and highly effective in improving health outcomes. Thus, this approach is ready for rigorous evaluation.

Accordingly, we propose an office-based, multicenter, randomized controlled trial (Tele-HF study) to determine the effectiveness of a telemonitoring strategy in decreasing hospital readmissions and death in patients with HF. Many HF patients experience deterioration in their health status and an increase in weight and symptoms over a period of days and weeks before ultimately presenting to medical attention and requiring hospitalization. Our premise is that a frequent monitoring system can alert clinicians to the early signs and symptoms of decompensation, providing the opportunity for intervention before the patient becomes severely ill and requires hospitalization. Moreover, such a system can engage patients in their care and provide instruction about beneficial self-care strategies. This intervention is not intended to substitute for communication relating to acute care or acute, sudden changes in health status. In these cases, patients are instructed to make direct and immediate contact with their doctor or hospital.

We will use the Pharos Tel-AssuranceTM, an in-home communication system that allows patients to transmit information to their clinicians and provides education to enable patients to actively participate in managing their condition. The system uses conventional telephone lines and does not require the patient to have Internet access. Patients are asked a pre-programmed series of questions and the system automatically uploads the responses to a secure data center. A clinician in each practice can then log on to a secure Internet site using a Web browser to review the patients' responses. The system thus serves as an interface between patients at home and their clinicians, facilitating monitoring of chronic conditions and patient education. While many vendors have potential tools to implement this study, we chose to use Pharos Tel-AssuranceTM because it is simple to use, does not require any equipment in patients' homes and substantial preliminary data suggest high patient and clinician satisfaction with its use. The investigators have no financial interest in this company.

Primary Aim Our primary aim is to determine whether telemonitoring by community-based cardiology office practices reduces the risk of hospital readmission (for any cause) or death after an initial "index hospitalization" for HF. We hypothesize that, among patients recently discharged after a hospitalization for HF, telemonitoring will decrease the rate of rehospitalization or death over 6 months by at least 15% (relative risk reduction). This would yield an absolute risk reduction of 7.5%, so that 1 major adverse event would be averted for every 13 patients.

We have chosen all-cause readmission as part of our primary outcome because poorly controlled HF can result in admissions for a variety of reasons, as the patient becomes weak and susceptible to falls, mental status changes, renal dysfunction, and other debilitating conditions that can result in hospitalization. In addition, from a societal and health system perspective, the overall risk of readmission is more important than disease-specific readmission. Moreover, prior studies suggest that telemonitoring can reduce this outcome.

Secondary Aims

In our secondary aims we will determine whether telemonitoring will:

1. Reduce the rate of all-cause hospital readmission
2. Reduce the rate of hospital readmission for HF
3. Reduce the total number of all-cause and HF-specific hospital readmissions
4. Increase office visits with the clinician receiving information from the telemonitoring system
5. Improve survival after index hospitalization
6. Reduce the cost of inpatient medical care
7. Improve health status
8. Improve patient satisfaction with care
9. Improve patients' self-management of HF

Sub-Group Analyses

The following sub-group analyses will be conducted:

1. Age
2. Sex
3. Race
4. HFPEF vs depressed EF
5. Education
6. Insurance status
7. Self-reported access to care
8. Baseline self-efficacy and self-care
9. Socioeconomic Status
10. Site characteristics

Conditions

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Congestive Heart Failure

Study Design

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Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

PARALLEL

Primary Study Purpose

PREVENTION

Blinding Strategy

NONE

Study Groups

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UC

Usual HF guideline-base care

Group Type NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

TM

Telemonitoring group plus usual guideline-based HF care

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Telemonitoring

Intervention Type OTHER

Participants in the intervention group are instructed to make a daily toll-free call to an automated telemonitoring system being provided by Pharos Innovations® (Chicago, IL) for 6 months.On each call patients hear a pre-recorded voice that goes through a series of questions about symptoms and the patient's daily weight. Information from the telemonitoring system is automatically downloaded to a secure Internet site for review by clinicians at each practice site.

Interventions

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Telemonitoring

Participants in the intervention group are instructed to make a daily toll-free call to an automated telemonitoring system being provided by Pharos Innovations® (Chicago, IL) for 6 months.On each call patients hear a pre-recorded voice that goes through a series of questions about symptoms and the patient's daily weight. Information from the telemonitoring system is automatically downloaded to a secure Internet site for review by clinicians at each practice site.

Intervention Type OTHER

Other Intervention Names

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Tel-Assurance

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* age 18 years or older
* hospitalized for heart failure within the past 30 days
* access to telephone line

Exclusion Criteria

* not expected to survive 6 months due to irreversible, life-threatening condition
* has or scheduled for cardiac transplant or LVAD
* scheduled for CABG or PCI within 90 days
* severe valvular disease
* Folstein MMSE score less than 20
* resident of a nursing home
* currently a prisoner
* does not speak English or Spanish
Minimum Eligible Age

18 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sponsors

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National Institutes of Health (NIH)

NIH

Sponsor Role collaborator

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)

NIH

Sponsor Role collaborator

Yale University

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Yale School of Medicine

Principal Investigators

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Harlan M. Krumholz, M.D.

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Yale University

Sarwat I Chaudhry, MD

Role: STUDY_DIRECTOR

Yale University

Jennifer Mattera, MPH

Role: STUDY_DIRECTOR

Yale University

Locations

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Cardiology Associates

Mobile, Alabama, United States

Site Status

UC Irvine Medical Center

Orange, California, United States

Site Status

UCLA Harbor Medical Center

Torrance, California, United States

Site Status

Department of Cardiology at Bridgeport Hospital

Bridgeport, Connecticut, United States

Site Status

Cardiology Associates of New Haven

New Haven, Connecticut, United States

Site Status

Howard University Hospital

Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States

Site Status

Integrated Care / Cardiovascular Consultants of South Florida

Tamarac, Florida, United States

Site Status

Piedmont Hospital Research Institute

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Site Status

Morehouse School of Medicine/Cardiology

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Site Status

Emory University

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

Site Status

The Queen's Medical Center

Honolulu, Hawaii, United States

Site Status

Loyola University Medical Center

Maywood, Illinois, United States

Site Status

Indiana Heart Physicians

Indianapolis, Indiana, United States

Site Status

Iowa City Heart Center

Iowa City, Iowa, United States

Site Status

Chabert Medical Center

Houma, Louisiana, United States

Site Status

Heart Clinic of Louisiana

Marrero, Louisiana, United States

Site Status

Cardiology Associates, LLC

Tupelo, Mississippi, United States

Site Status

Truman Medical Center/Cardiology

Kansas City, Missouri, United States

Site Status

St. Luke's Hospital / Mid-America Heart Institute

Kansas City, Missouri, United States

Site Status

Washington University

St Louis, Missouri, United States

Site Status

Cardiology Diagnostics

St Louis, Missouri, United States

Site Status

Cooper Health System Cardiology

Camden, New Jersey, United States

Site Status

Hackensack University Medical Center

Hackensack, New Jersey, United States

Site Status

St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center / Cardiology Associates

Paterson, New Jersey, United States

Site Status

New York University/Cardiology

New York, New York, United States

Site Status

Forsyth Medical Center

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States

Site Status

MetroHealth Medical Center, Heart & Vascular Center

Cleveland, Ohio, United States

Site Status

The Dayton Heart Center

Dayton, Ohio, United States

Site Status

Oregon Health and Science University

Portland, Oregon, United States

Site Status

University of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Site Status

Cardiology Specialists, Ltd.

Westerly, Rhode Island, United States

Site Status

Baylor University Medical Center

Dallas, Texas, United States

Site Status

Sentara Cardiology Consultants, Ltd.

Norfolk, Virginia, United States

Site Status

Countries

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United States

References

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Jayaram NM, Khariton Y, Krumholz HM, Chaudhry SI, Mattera J, Tang F, Herrin J, Hodshon B, Spertus JA. Impact of Telemonitoring on Health Status. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes. 2017 Dec;10(12):e004148. doi: 10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.117.004148.

Reference Type DERIVED
PMID: 29237746 (View on PubMed)

Steventon A, Chaudhry SI, Lin Z, Mattera JA, Krumholz HM. Assessing the reliability of self-reported weight for the management of heart failure: application of fraud detection methods to a randomised trial of telemonitoring. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2017 Apr 18;17(1):43. doi: 10.1186/s12911-017-0426-4.

Reference Type DERIVED
PMID: 28420352 (View on PubMed)

Mortazavi BJ, Downing NS, Bucholz EM, Dharmarajan K, Manhapra A, Li SX, Negahban SN, Krumholz HM. Analysis of Machine Learning Techniques for Heart Failure Readmissions. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes. 2016 Nov;9(6):629-640. doi: 10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.116.003039. Epub 2016 Nov 8.

Reference Type DERIVED
PMID: 28263938 (View on PubMed)

Krumholz HM, Chaudhry SI, Spertus JA, Mattera JA, Hodshon B, Herrin J. Do Non-Clinical Factors Improve Prediction of Readmission Risk?: Results From the Tele-HF Study. JACC Heart Fail. 2016 Jan;4(1):12-20. doi: 10.1016/j.jchf.2015.07.017. Epub 2015 Dec 2.

Reference Type DERIVED
PMID: 26656140 (View on PubMed)

Qian F, Parzynski CS, Chaudhry SI, Hannan EL, Shaw BA, Spertus JA, Krumholz HM. Racial Differences in Heart Failure Outcomes: Evidence From the Tele-HF Trial (Telemonitoring to Improve Heart Failure Outcomes). JACC Heart Fail. 2015 Jul;3(7):531-538. doi: 10.1016/j.jchf.2015.03.005.

Reference Type DERIVED
PMID: 26160368 (View on PubMed)

Bikdeli B, Wayda B, Bao H, Ross JS, Xu X, Chaudhry SI, Spertus JA, Bernheim SM, Lindenauer PK, Krumholz HM. Place of residence and outcomes of patients with heart failure: analysis from the telemonitoring to improve heart failure outcomes trial. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes. 2014 Sep;7(5):749-56. doi: 10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.113.000911. Epub 2014 Jul 29.

Reference Type DERIVED
PMID: 25074375 (View on PubMed)

Chaudhry SI, Mattera JA, Curtis JP, Spertus JA, Herrin J, Lin Z, Phillips CO, Hodshon BV, Cooper LS, Krumholz HM. Telemonitoring in patients with heart failure. N Engl J Med. 2010 Dec 9;363(24):2301-9. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1010029. Epub 2010 Nov 16.

Reference Type DERIVED
PMID: 21080835 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

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R01HL080228

Identifier Type: NIH

Identifier Source: secondary_id

View Link

0502027466

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id

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