Telemedicine for cardiovascular disease continuum: A position paper from the Italian Society of Cardiology Working Group on Telecardiology and Informatics

Abstract

Telemedicine is the provision of health care services, through the use of information and communication technology, in situations where the health care professional and the patient, or 2 health care professionals, are not in the same location. It involves the secure transmission of medical data and information, through text, sound, images, or other forms needed for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of a patient. First data on implementation of telemedicine for the diagnosis and treatment of acute myocardial infarction date from more than 10 years ago. Telemedicine has a potential broad application to the cardiovascular disease continuum and in many branches of cardiology, at least including heart failure, ischemic heart disease and arrhythmias. Telemedicine might have an important role as part of a strategy for the delivery of effective health care for patients with cardiovascular disease. In this document the Working Group on Telecardiology and Informatics of the Italian Society of Cardiology intends to remark some key-points regarding potential benefit achievable with the implementation of telemedicine support in the continuum of cardiovascular disease.

Impact of telemedicine interventions on mortality in patients with acute myocardial infarction: a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Cardiology is a promising area in telemedicine and, within cardiology, acute coronary syndrome (ACS) care is one of the fields where most of the efforts have been made. 5 In this context, telemedicine strategies have the potential to improve diagnosis and to increase healthcare professionals' adherence to the therapeutic measures established for ACS, thus improving ACS care. The current evidence has largely been centred on the validation of technologies, feasibility, usability or the impact on process outcomes, but there are paucity of data on the impact on patient-centred outcomes to justify implementation of telemedicine.…”

Potential users’ preferences towards cardiac telemedicine: A discrete choice experiment investigation in Sardinia

“…Practitioners support an extensive use of telemedicine (e.g. promoting cooperation, information sharing, decision support and flexibility) especially for those with chronic conditions, thus improving the quality of care [2,7].…”

“…Systematic reviews have found consensus on the effectiveness of telemedicine devices in patients with chronic heart failure and coronary heart disease [12][13][14][15][16]. The benefits of telemedicine in cardiology include reduced mortality and number of hospital admissions, rationalized costs and improved practitioners' decision making [7].…”

The future of telemedicine for the management of heart failure patients: a Consensus Document of the Italian Association of Hospital Cardiologists (A.N.M.C.O), the Italian Society of Cardiology (S.I.C.) and the Italian Society for Telemedicine and eHealth (Digital S.I.T.)

“…However, the absence of a TM legal and regulatory framework at national level remains the main problem. For this reason, both in the year 2009 82 and more recently 83 a position paper on TM was published by the Italian Society of Cardiology to better define operational standards starting from the Italian best practice on TM. In 2014, the national strategic guidelines on TM were published by the ‘State-Regions Conference’ 84 .…”