[Telemonitoring of implanted cardiac devices : Clinical necessity or senseless luxury?]

In addition to the telemedical follow-up at a fixed point in time, there is the possibility of a close-meshed telemetric monitoring in modern devices. By transferring device and patient-specific data, errors in the integrity of the device or electrodes and cardiac arrhythmias can be detected early, in various studies significantly reducing the number of outpatient or inpatient visits and the rate of inadequate implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapies. Measurement of various surrogate parameters allows better clinical assessment of heart failure patients, yet no improvement in outcome with therapy guided by telemetric data has been demonstrated. Retrospective analyzes, a prospective randomized study, and various meta-analyzes identified a reduction in all-cause mortality through the use of remote monitoring. This effect is mainly due to monitoring as closely as possible, timely examination of the findings, accordingly early interventions and specification of clear therapeutic regimens in certain clinical scenarios. Such comprehensive patient care requires the creation of telemonitoring centers with appropriate structural and personal equipment, whereby the creation of such structures has not yet been remunerated in the German healthcare system. In this paper, an overview of remote monitoring and identify possibilities and limitations of device-based telemedical monitoring is provided.