Telemonitoring of Real-World Health Data in Cardiology : A Systematic Review

Background

New sensor technologies in wearables and other consumer health devices open up promising opportunities to collect real-world data. As cardiovascular diseases remain the number one reason for disease and mortality worldwide, cardiology offers potent monitoring use cases with patients in their out-of-hospital daily routines. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review is to investigate the status quo of studies monitoring patients with cardiovascular risks and patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases in a telemedical setting using not only a smartphone-based app, but also consumer health devices such as wearables and other sensor-based devices.

Methods

A literature search was conducted across five databases, and the results were examined according to the study protocols, technical approaches, and qualitative and quantitative parameters measured.

Results

Out of 166 articles, 8 studies were included in this systematic review; these cover interventional and observational monitoring approaches in the area of cardiovascular diseases, heart failure, and atrial fibrillation using various app, wearable, and health device combinations.

Conclusions

Depending on the researcher's motivation, a fusion of apps, patient-reported outcome measures, and non-invasive sensors can be orchestrated in a meaningful way, adding major contributions to monitoring concepts for both individual patients and larger cohorts.