JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The risk of rehospitalization in heart failure (HF) patients has initiated various preventive efforts and to simultaneously improve the quality of life (QoL) of the patients. Self-monitoring at home is one option, and technology is increasingly being used for this purpose.

Objective:

To reduce the risk of hospital readmission and maintain the QoL of HF patients through self-monitoring with the assistance of a digital application.

Methods:

Starting with determining the need for HF services in National Cardiovascular Center Jakarta in 2024, an application called FineHeart was built and tested on HF patients in a quasi-experimental pilot study. After the User Acceptance Test was completed, HF patients were recruited as intervention group and control group participants. Quality of Life was measured with the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) before and after the test. The readmission rate and 4 of the KCCQ parameters were analysed between the 2 groups.

Results:

Of the 72 patients who met the inclusion criteria, thirty participated in the intervention group and thirty in the control group who had signed the consent form. In the intervention group, after 30 days, 22 people complied using the FineHeart application prototype (73.3%), six were readmitted (20%), and one died not because of HF (3.3%). In the control group, 10 were readmitted (33.3%), and three died because of HF (10%). There was a significant relationship between adherence to application usage and an increase in Quality-of-Life scores (p<0.029) and Overall Summary Score (p<0.001)), but not in Self-efficacy and Social Limitation Scores.

Conclusions:

The findings of this study provide a potential benefit for HF patients to perform self-monitoring at home in collaboration with the hospital team by using FineHeart app. Patient adherence may reduce the risk of readmission and improve QoL. Multicenter studies on larger groups of patients are needed to confirm these preliminary results.