Reducing heart failure admissions and enhancing treatment access for underserved communities
A Northern Devon and Health Innovation South West pilot project aims to improve heart failure support at North Devon Hospital, enhancing treatment access via a remote monitoring service.
Heart and circulatory diseases claim the lives of 3 in 10 people in North Devon, with approximately 1,100 diagnosed with heart failure. The area faces significant deprivation challenges, including digital exclusion.
Funded by NHS England’s Innovation for Healthcare Inequalities Programme, Health Innovation South West in partnership with the Royal Devon University Healthcare Cardiology team developed a 12-month pilot project at North Devon District Hospital to offer enhanced support to people with heart failure.
Through the use of the innovation ‘Clini-touch’, a digital platform from Spirit Health, patients can be monitored at home closely for a period of time following a hospital admission or recent diagnosis of heart failure.
Patients upload a symptom questionnaire, their blood pressure, pulse, and weight readings either daily, or on alternate days. This allows the heart failure team to regularly reassess the treatments and ensure that any worsening of symptoms is addressed quickly. The digital approach saves time and enables efficient triaging and risk assessment.
The next steps involve recommendations to extend and expand the pilot, develop a business case, ensure technology sustainability, and explore funding opportunities for continuation and expansion.
- Better and more equitable health outcomes
- Reduction in avoidable hospital admission
- Improved mortality rates of people with heart failure
- Improved quality of life of people with heart failure
- Increase in early supported discharge. All 21 patients with HFpEF (heart failure with preserved ejection fraction) were able to access supported discharge care via remote monitoring.
- Time taken for treatment optimisation. 84% of eligible patients with HFrEF (heart failure with reduced ejection fraction) were optimised on 4 pillars of heart failure therapy within 3 months, with an average time to optimisation of 65 days compared to periods of up to 12 months previously.
- Reduction in HF related appointments. Taking the 67 people successfully discharged from the remote monitoring service, it is estimated that 402 outpatient appointments were saved, which at a cost of £120 per encounter, equates to a cost saving of £48,240.
- Equity of service provision for all patients irrespective of diagnosis. Remote monitoring allowed HFpEF patients to access specialist-initiated treatments, narrowing the gap between those who received them and those who didn’t among the monitored cohort.
