There was no significant difference in outcomes among patients with heart failure who used remote patient monitoring tools and those who didn’t, according to a study, called Better Effectiveness After Transition–Heart Failure (BEAT-HF), that was published in JAMA Internal Medicine. iMedicalApps covered this story last week.

Researchers recruited 1,437 participants who were hospitalized for heart failure between October 2011 and September 2013. 

The researchers randomized participants, all 50 years or older, into two groups. The intervention arm consisted of 715 patients and the usual care arm included 722 patients. Participants were spread across six academic medical centers in California and were tracked for 180 days after discharge.

Patients in the intervention group received health coaching phone calls and monitored their blood pressure, heart rate, symptoms, and weight using health devices. Registered nurses tracked this data and coached participants.

Readmissions occurred in about 50 percent of both groups 180 days after discharge. There also were no significant differences in the 30-day readmission or 180-day mortality.

This trial comes just a month after the Scripps Translational Science Institute announced results from its Wired For Health study. That randomized control trial found no short-term benefit in health costs or outcomes for patients monitoring their health with connected devices. This study also ran for about six months but recruited a much smaller sample, 160 patients with either hypertension, diabetes, or arrhythmia.