Is it feasible to outsource the remote monitoring of implantable cardiac defibrillators in a large tertiary hospital?

AIM: To provide a detailed description of the workflow at our telecardiology centre and to analyse the workload of real-world remote monitoring with the aim to assess the feasibility to outsource this service.

METHODS: A retrospective analysis was conducted on the telecardiology service provided at the University Hospitals of Leuven by extracting patient demographic data, general time usage and detailed information about the type of remote contacts. 10,869 contacts in 948 patients have been included. A 2-week prospective study was conducted on the same service by documenting and monitoring every action performed by specialised nurses when analysing and solving remote monitoring transmissions. 337 contacts in 262 patients were collected during this period.

RESULTS: Both analyses indicated similar numbers of events and interventions. Unplanned transmissions were more challenging and required more interventions than planned transmissions. Relatively little time (retrospective median: 1.83 min; prospective median: 1.56 min, per event) was spent on incoming non-actionable 'normal' transmissions (retrospective: 46%; prospective: 40% of all events). Retrospectively 54% and prospectively 60% of transmissions showed abnormalities and were responsible for most of the time expended. Disease-related issues were the most frequent cause for these 'abnormal' alerts. Contacting patients and physicians were key interventions undertaken. Interaction initiated by patients mainly involved the installation process (42%) and bedside monitoring problems (32%).

CONCLUSION: External data centres could deal with 40% of the transmissions, but the decline in workload would be negligible for the in-hospital remote monitoring team, because very little time is spent dealing with the many 'non-event' transmissions whereas most of the time is spent solving clinical problems. Providing sufficient resources and optimising communication protocols is necessary to aid in managing the workload of the remote monitoring team.

Implications for practiceContacting patients and physicians are key interventions for specialist nurses in remote monitoring centres.Detailed timing confirmed that most time was spent on relevant disease-related clinical problems.Despite dealing with ∼40% of transmissions, outsourcing to external data centres would decrease the workload only by 15-25%.Patient initiated contacts with questions concerning remote monitoring form a high burden and should be countered by scaling the service and creating communication protocols.