Home telemonitoring for patients with severe respiratory illness: the Italian experience

Abstract

We investigated the feasibility of telemonitoring services for patients with severe respiratory illness. In the first phase of the study, patients were observed and treated using face-to-face medical visits for 12 months. In the second phase of the study, the patients were monitored at home for 12 months, during which time determinations of arterial oxygen saturation and heart rate were performed twice a week, and the data were automatically transmitted to the hospital's processing centre via a normal telephone line. Thirty patients on long-term oxygen therapy were enrolled in the study; 23 completed the 12 months of home telemonitoring. The numbers of hospital admissions and of acute home exacerbations during the telemonitoring phase of the study decreased by 50% and 55%, respectively, in comparison with the first phase. Estimates of hospitalization costs for the patients during the second phase were approximately 17% lower than those for the first phase. Patients were satisfied with the quality of the personal telemonitoring process in 96% of cases. We believe that telemedicine can enable the provision of high-quality home care for patients with severe respiratory illness.

Managing COPD Exacerbations with Telemedicine

“…This is different from earlier work (e.g. [3]) in which telemonitoring data was analysed remotely by hand.…”

Desarrollo de un sistema de telemetría para el seguimiento postoperatorio de procedimientos en cirugía vascular: modelo in vitro

“…Se han publicado varios estudios que evalúan los resultados de la telemonitorización de la EPOC concluyendo que dichos protocolos han identificado de forma precoz el empeoramiento clínico de los pacientes, facilitando la intervención inmediata y de este modo evitando las exacerbaciones de la enfermedad y sus complicaciones asociadas (142)(143)(144)(145) .…”

Rational development of telehealth to support primary care respiratory medicine: patient distribution and organisational factors

“…Current use of telehealth technologies in respiratory medicine is limited; 2 evidence for their effective use is accruing, [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] but there remain concerns about clinical and cost effectiveness. 7,17 These issues will be affected by the setting in which telehealth is deployed.…”

“…2,6,7 The feasibility of telecare and telemonitoring for COPD and asthma has been demonstrated, [8][9][10][11][12] and telemonitoring has been reported to reduce hospital admissions, emergency department visits and length of stay. 13,14 Remote monitoring of chemotherapy by mobile phone has also proven successful in lung cancer management. 15 In a systematic review of telehealth applications, patient acceptance and satisfaction were generally high, although robust evidence on cost effectiveness and benefits was lacking.…”