November 15, 2005 -- Adding automated daily home monitoring to telephone-based disease management significantly reduced heart failure hospitalizations, according to study results presented at this week's American Heart Association (AHA) scientific sessions in Dallas.

Clinical trial results demonstrated a significant reduction in heart failure and cardiac hospitalizations when automated home monitoring was added to a disease management program of nurse telephone support.

Dr. Andrew Weintraub (Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston, Mass.)presented results of the Specialized Primary and Networked Care in Heart

Failure (SPAN-CHF II) study at AHA. This 90-day prospective randomized controlled study involved 188 patients who were recently hospitalized with
heart failure across a diverse provider network. The addition of automated home monitoring (AHM) to previously validated telephonic disease management (SPAN CHF I) produced significant further improvement in short-term HF-related clinical outcomes:
* 72% reduction in HF hospitalizations for AHM intervention group
* 63% reduction in cardiac hospitalizations for AHM intervention group

In addition, the study showed a favorable trend that fell short of significance toward a reduction in all-cause hospitalizations. There was no effect on mortality.

"We believe that these findings add importantly to our understanding of factors contributing to reduced adverse outcomes in patients with heart failure," said Dr. Marvin Konstam, senior investigator on the project and Chief of Cardiology at Tufts-New England Medical Center. "A daily, systematic, automated approach to conveying critical patient information significantly improves our ability to deliver effective care to patients with this condition."

The disease management program used for both the control group and intervention group included patient education and weekly telephone calls between nurses and patients under the direction of a HF- specialist physician. The SPAN-CHF II intervention group also received automated daily home monitoring, which consisted of vital sign measurement devices used by patients to measure their weight and blood pressure, and a text-message interface that surveyed patients on health status and medication compliance. Patient data were reviewed daily by nurse care managers, who communicated with primary care physicians as needed.

Philips Telemonitoring Services provided the measurement devices that were used to collect patient vital sign data for automated home monitoring.

Health Hero Network provided the Health Buddy© appliance that delivered surveys for subjective assessments. Philips Medical Systems and Glaxo-Smith Kline were sponsors of the trial.

For more information on Philips Remote Patient Management solutions, click
on www.medical.philips.com/goto/telemonitoring/.

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