In the last years, multidisciplinary post-discharge treatment programs, such as telemonitoring, have been promoted as a strategy for Heart Failure (HF) management. However, the distinctive requirements that a telemonitoring system should have, have not been clearly identified. To this aim, the most relevant requirements for telemonitoring of HF patients are derived from evidence-based Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) for HF management. The main objective of this work is to present a prototype of a telemonitoring system for HF patients, named SiTe iC, that has been developed based on the identified requirements, highlighting its design and evaluation. A first prototype of the system was designed and programmed. It consists of an mHealth app for HF patients, a website for physicians who monitor patients, and a server which runs an Application Programming Interface to allow communication between the app and the website. The system was thoroughly assessed through a clinical trial that demonstrates that telemonitoring using SiTe iC actually improves patients self-care when compared to usual care and it has the potential to avoid patient re-hospitalizations. This study demonstrated that the identified functional requirements for telemonitoring systems are relevant. In addition, thanks to SiTe iC, HF patients would take a more active role in their disease management by improving self-care.
Keywords: Clinical practice guidelines; Health informatics; Healthcare applications; Heart failure; Monitoring functional requirements; mHealth.
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