TY  - JOUR
AU  - Luzi, Mario
AU  - De Simone, Antonio
AU  - Leoni, Loira
AU  - Amellone, Claudia
AU  - Pisanò, Ennio
AU  - Favale, Stefano
AU  - Iacoviello, Massimo
AU  - Luise, Raffaele
AU  - Bongiorni, Maria Grazia
AU  - Stabile, Giuseppe
AU  - La Rocca, Vincenzo
AU  - Folino, Franco
AU  - Capucci, Alessandro
AU  - D'Onofrio, Antonio
AU  - Accardi, Francesco
AU  - Valsecchi, Sergio
AU  - Buia, Gianfranco
PY  - 2013
DA  - 2013/09/20
TI  - Remote Monitoring for Implantable Defibrillators: A Nationwide Survey in Italy
JO  - Interact J Med Res
SP  - e27
VL  - 2
IS  - 2
KW  - implantable defibrillator
KW  - remote monitoring
KW  - follow-up
AB  - Background: Remote monitoring (RM) permits home interrogation of implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) and provides an alternative option to frequent in-person visits. Objective: The Italia-RM survey aimed to investigate the current practice of ICD follow-up in Italy and to evaluate the adoption and routine use of RM. Methods: An ad hoc questionnaire on RM adoption and resource use during in-clinic and remote follow-up sessions was completed in 206 Italian implanting centers. Results: The frequency of routine in-clinic ICD visits was 2 per year in 158/206 (76.7%) centers, 3 per year in 37/206 (18.0%) centers, and 4 per year in 10/206 (4.9%) centers. Follow-up examinations were performed by a cardiologist in 203/206 (98.5%) centers, and by more than one health care worker in 184/206 (89.3%) centers. There were 137/206 (66.5%) responding centers that had already adopted an RM system, the proportion of ICD patients remotely monitored being 15% for single- and dual-chamber ICD and 20% for cardiac resynchronization therapy ICD. Remote ICD interrogations were scheduled every 3 months, and were performed by a cardiologist in 124/137 (90.5%) centers. After the adoption of RM, the mean time between in-clinic visits increased from 5 (SD 1) to 8 (SD 3) months (P<.001). Conclusions: In current clinical practice, in-clinic ICD follow-up visits consume a large amount of health care resources. The results of this survey show that RM has only partially been adopted in Italy and, although many centers have begun to implement RM in their clinical practice, the majority of their patients continue to be routinely followed-up by means of in-clinic visits. 
SN  - 1929-073X
UR  - http://www.i-jmr.org/2013/2/e27/
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/ijmr.2824
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24055720
DO  - 10.2196/ijmr.2824
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/ijmr.2824
ER  -