The objective of telemonitoring is to reduce hospitalizations. - F. Scheiber / 20 Minutes illustration

  • In France, one million people suffer from heart failure.
  • To improve the lives of patients and avoid hospitalizations, telemonitoring tools were deployed in 2013 as part of an experiment with 1,000 people.
  • This study showed a decrease in the risk of first hospitalization.

Difficulty breathing, very tired. Symptoms that Laurent Castanié knows well. In 2014, this farmer was hospitalized at the Toulouse University Hospital. It is there that he learns that he is one of the “heart failure” patients, that is to say nearly a million people in France.

A cold shower for this Lotois who had never been sick. After several alerts, his Toulouse doctors suggested that he join the Osicat clinical study, a remote monitoring experiment started a year earlier. Each morning, it is up to him to weigh himself and answer a series of questions on a tablet. “Twice they hospitalized me after the telemonitoring reports. They realized that something was wrong, ”says Laurent Castanié.

Today 49 years old, this patient was transplanted last year after being followed remotely for several years. “At first it seemed boring, but the nurses called regularly. Honestly it is reassuring and I was not afraid to call them ”, confides this patient who was able to resume his activity.

And this is one of the positive aspects that emerges from the experiment according to Professor Michel Galinier. Between May 2013 and December 2017, the head of the cardiology department at the Rangueil hospital in Toulouse coordinated the national Osicat study, the results of which have just been published.

During this period, 990 patients from 38 centers in France were monitored remotely using technology developed by Air Liquide.

Decrease in hospitalizations

“Among the results, there was a significant 21% drop in the risk of first hospitalization. For isolated patients, this is also positive, ”notes Michel Galinier, whose objective in this type of device is to anticipate hospitalizations and reduce the relapse of patients. In the Osicat study, general practitioners were on the front line to respond to patients if an anomaly was detected by the nurses responsible for monitoring the data.

Since then, a new study, called "Stages" and using the same technical device, has been launched by Health Insurance. But, this time, the referents are cardiologists and no longer the treating physicians. Since its launch two years ago, 203 Toulouse patients have participated. “And we have the impression that there is a drop in hospitalizations. Normally, at six months, the figure is 30% of hospitalizations, there it is 16%. The nurses pre-sort and manage to detect false alarms, ”notes the cardiologist.

Remote monitoring that also made sense during the confinement and the Covid-19 crisis, when patients limited their trips to hospital services.

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  • Heart attack
  • Hospital
  • Consultation
  • Surveillance
  • Toulouse
  • Cardiology
  • Health