Telehealth and Outpatient Management of Heart Failure

Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Outpatient Management of Heart Failure

According to a Journal of the American College of Cardiology study, telehealth visits for outpatients with heart failure (HF) did not increase mortality or a need for acute care. There were 8,263 unique patients with HF and 15,421 cumulative health visits from 2018 through 2020. The majority of encounters in 2020 (88.5 percent) were telehealth, with no remote encounters conducted in 2018 or 2019. A telehealth model for outpatients with heart failure allowed for distanced encounters without increases in subsequent acute care or mortality. As the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic abate, these data suggest that telehealth outpatient visits in patients with heart failure can be safely incorporated into clinical practice.