Economic impact of remote monitoring after implantable defibrillators implantation in heart failure patients: An analysis from the EFFECT study

Aims Heart failure (HF) patients with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD) require admissions for disease management and out-patient visits for disease management and assessment of device performance. These admissions place a significant burden on the National Health Service. Remote monitoring (RM) is an effective alternative to frequent hospital visits. The EFFECT study was a multicentre observational investigation aiming to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of RM compared with in-office visits standard management (SM). The present analysis is an economic evaluation of the results of the EFFECT trial. Methods and results The present analysis considered the direct consumption of healthcare resources over 12-month follow-up. Standard tariffs were applied to hospitalizations, in-office visits and remote device interrogations. Economic comparisons were also carried out by means of propensity score (PS) analysis to take into account the lack of randomization in the study design. The analysis involved 858 patients with ICD or CRT-D. Of these, 401 (47%) were followed up via an SM approach, while 457 (53%) were assigned to RM. The rate of hospitalizations was 0.27/year in the SM group and 0.16/year in the RM group (risk reduction =0.59; P = 0.0004). In the non-adjusted analysis, the annual cost for each patient was e817 in the SM group and e604 in the RM group (P = 0.014). Propensity score analysis, in which 292 RM patients were matched with 292 SM patients, confirmed the results of the non-adjusted analysis (e872 in the SM group vs. e757 in the RM group; P < 0.0001). Conclusion There is a reduction in direct healthcare costs of RM for HF patients with ICDs, particularly CRT-D, compared with standard monitoring.