TEC4Home: Telehealth for emergency-community continuity of care connectivity via home monitoring

Patients with long term medical conditions like heart failure or chronic lung diseases typically get admitted to and discharged from hospitals frequently because their conditions fluctuate. For example, one out of four patients older than 65 with heart failure often needs to return to hospital within one month of a previous emergency room or hospital stay. Today, using electronic monitors, patients can measure their own blood pressure, weight, and blood oxygen from home, and send their measurements to doctors or nurses so they can supervise the patient’s state of health. We are testing this home health monitoring approach to see if it can help patients with heart failure or chronic lung diseases stay healthy and safe at home.

In our research program called TEC4Home, we hope to show that home monitoring: 1) helps patients to manage their illnesses better themselves because they know their own bodies best, and 2) allows nurses and doctors to follow patients closely without needing to visit them. We expect to show that these patients will stay well and not need to revisit emergency departments, thereby helping hospitals to save money or save the beds for sicker patients.

We will first invite 90 patients with heart failure from Vancouver General and St. Paul’s Hospitals to test the home monitoring approach after they go home. Findings will allow us to make improvements before we expand to enroll 900 patients in 30 hospitals in BC in a formal clinical study.

Provided TEC4Home is found to help patients and decrease hospital costs, we will expand this service to be offered to other patients with heart failure across BC. We will invite companies that make monitoring equipment to develop newer and better versions, and use our experimental approach to test these devices to ensure they are safe and useful. We will also test TEC4Home with patients with chronic lung diseases to expand TEC4Home to serve patients with more than one type of long term disease.

We will work closely with doctors, nurses, patients and families, hospital managers, government leaders, technology companies, and health researchers. Patients will not only test the approach, but will also be involved in planning and carrying out the research. We will share findings with governments and health organizations so that home health monitoring, if proven effective, will become a routine part of treating patients. We will present at medical conferences and publish to share learnings beyond BC.

End of award update: June 2021

Most exciting outputs:
The home health monitoring (HHM) research is now being applied in practice, within the fabric of the health system. What we have learned is being applied and has been used in policy making. Methods and an evaluation framework have informed not only this project, but the evidence used in the real world.

While results from the full randomized controlled trial are forthcoming, the findings from our feasibility study showed signals of overall positive impact. This included reduction of emergency department revisits, hospital readmissions, and hospital length of stay. Results also showed an improvement in quality of life and self-efficacy. Further, feedback from patient participants indicate the HHM service was well received and helped participants feel safer and more supported at home after discharge from the hospital.

The TEC4Home Heart Failure study also resulted in the expansion of the concept to new conditions (like hypertension) and new technologies (such as an in-home medication dispenser). These new projects will continue to collect and build a body of evidence to best inform how digital health can help support the transition of care from hospital to home for a variety of patient populations in BC.

Impact so far
The findings from this project have been used to inform the ongoing implementation of home health monitoring in BC. It is our goal to continue to add to this evidence and see the application of these findings in the health system.

Potential future influence
At a provincial level, as noted above, the PI, K. Ho, is a member of the Digital Health Committee in BC. This involvement allows for project findings to be applied in alignment with existing policies and to inform emerging policies.

Further, the PI, K. Ho, is also a member of multiple national committees, such as the Canadian Virtual Care Task Force (focused on digital health implementation and education); the National Research Council (focused on medical device research with influence on national digital health research in practice); and the Health Canada scientific advisory committee (focused on the regulation and support of industry in digital health). All of these memberships provide opportunities for health policy influence.

Next steps
Over the course of the next year (to Mar 2022), we will be completing the final analysis of our TEC4Home Heart Failure randomized controlled trial. The results will be shared back to our various project committees and partners, including all of the patient participants. We will also seek more dissemination opportunities, such as publication in a high impact journal and presentation at conference(s).

In addition, as previously mentioned, with recently acquired funding, we are applying the TEC4Home concept to new conditions (hypertension) and new areas of impact (medication adherence). We are also incorporating the use of data analytics to deepen our understanding and the application of home health monitoring. This expansion of TEC4Home will continue to develop the evidence base of the use of technology to support patients safely at home, as they transition from acute to community care.

Useful Links
Digital Emergency Medicine (DigEM) website: TEC4Home Heart Failure | Digital Emergency Medicine (ubc.ca)
https://digem.med.ubc.ca/projects/tec4home-telehealth-for-emergency-community-continuity-of-care-connectivity-via-home-telemonitoring/

Feasibility Study publication: Testing the Feasibility of Sensor-Based Home Health Monitoring (TEC4Home) to Support the Convalescence of Patients With Heart Failure: Pre-Post Study – PubMed (nih.gov) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34081015/

Trial Protocol publication: Supporting Heart Failure Patient Transitions From Acute to Community Care With Home Telemonitoring Technology: A Protocol for a Provincial Randomized Controlled Trial (TEC4Home) – PubMed (nih.gov)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27977002/

VCH news article about launch of trial: TEC4Home moves forward to clinical trials – Vancouver Coastal Health (vch.ca)
http://www.vch.ca/about-us/news/news-releases/tec4home-moves-forward-to-clinical-trials

Blog post by HeartLife: TEC4Home: Improving self-care management for heart failure patients – HeartLife Foundation
https://heartlife.ca/2019-3-1-tec4home-improving-self-care-management-for-heart-failure-patients/