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Comment & Response
July 2016

Telemedicine in Heart Failure—Ineffective or Just Ill Used?—Reply

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles
  • 2Department of Medicine, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, California
  • 3Department of Internal Medicine, University of California, Davis, Davis
  • 4Department of Pediatrics, University of California, Davis, Davis
JAMA Intern Med. 2016;176(7):1035-1036. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.2860

In Reply The BEAT-HF Research Group appreciates the comments by Drs Pedone and Antonelli-Incalzi, as well as Drs Majmudar and Dy Aungst. We agree with the comments that telemonitoring by itself will not change outcomes unless it is integrated into health care processes so it can be paired with effective actions by health care providers along with subsequent patient adherence and that telemonitoring needs to be integrated into health care processes. However, we should clarify that the BEAT-HF nurses directly communicated with patients’ health care providers for concerning signs and symptoms identified via telemonitoring in addition to directly encouraging patients to undertake similar action.1 Although the BEAT-HF Research Group reported intention-to-treat analyses, we are currently conducting secondary analyses using electronic health record data to evaluate subsequent actions of health care providers and patients prompted by alerts.

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