HomeMedical SpecialtiesCardiologyRemote monitoring improves patient experience after discharge

Remote monitoring improves patient experience after discharge

Published on

By James Wysotski

Patients at the Heart Failure Clinic know help is just a phone call away.

If they notice sudden leg swelling or shortness of breath, the clinic’s nurse practitioner, Haytham Sharar, can advise them.

But what if they don’t recognize these symptoms of congestive heart failure?

A recent quality improvement initiative pursued by Ada Andrade, a nurse practitioner in the Heart and Vascular Program, helped people who didn’t realize they needed it.

While on placement at the Ottawa Heart Institute in 2013 during her master’s in quality improvement and patient safety, Andrade was inspired by the hospital’s remote monitoring of discharged patients. With the goal of reducing readmission rates, she envisioned adapting it for St. Michael’s Hospital.

Sharing the same goal, the Ontario Telemedicine Network and the Community Care Access Centre partnered with St. Michael’s heart failure team in a six-month pilot program that ended in June.

Using OTN’s remote-monitoring equipment, a CCAC nurse checked in daily with patients discharged from St. Michael’s and followed in the heart failure clinic. If signs and symptoms of heart failure and deterioration were detected, the nurse contacted Sharar so that he could call the patient to confirm and determine if a visit to the clinic or other steps were required for further tests or a change in medications.

Primarily elderly patients with comorbidities, “some didn’t realize they had developing problems that were worthy of a call or visit, like weight gain or swelling,” said Sharar. Through this increased monitoring, they received help before problems got out of hand.

With fewer than 10 patients recruited to the program, the sample size may be too small to make generalizations about its effectiveness at lowering readmission rates, said Andrade. Data won’t be available until later this fall.

Regardless, both Andrade and Sharar know the program improved the patient experience.

“The patients love it, but more importantly, so do the caregivers,” said Sharar. “They have an extra eye looking at their loved ones and they know there is somebody there they can rely on and call any time. This gives them relief.”

James Wysotski is a Communications Adviser at St. Michael’s Hospital.

Latest articles

The Canadian Consensus Statement on the management of venous leg ulcers

This Consensus Statement was developed with the objective of creating a concise document that...

A pathway to independence for patients with rare disease

Nearly 20 years ago, Audrey Gouskos came through the St. Michael’s Hospital Emergency Department...

Robotic-assisted rehabilitation now available in Fraser Health

Stroke patient Leanne Mork is learning to walk again with the assistance of a...

Helping Canada Design Health Care Facilities for Future Needs

Health care facilities (HCFs) play an important role in communities, providing a safe, secure,...

More like this

Free toolkit to support mental health in the workplace

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) has released a free Workplace Mental...

Move more, age well: prescribing physical activity for older adults as a recipe for healthy aging

Can physical activity extend the lifespans of older adults? A review article published in CMAJ (Canadian...

Antipsychotic use has been rising in long-term care homes, but we can do something about it – we’ve done it before

As health care providers working in long-term care (LTC), we’ve seen firsthand how antipsychotic...

Sinai Health team sheds light on COVID-19 variant dynamics in Toronto

The worst days of the pandemic may be behind us, but research into the...

Safe medication use of blood thinning medications

blood clot is an accumulation of blood that has thickened and clumped together. The...

Canadian first: Sunnybrook achieves second level of age-friendly health system designation

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre is proud to announce a first-in-Canada recognition, as we received...