Efficacy of telehealth in integrated chronic disease management for older, multimorbid adults with heart failure: A systematic review

Background: We conducted a systematic review to assess the comparative efficacy of integrated telehealth versus other strategies of chronic disease management in older, multimorbid adults with heart failure (HF) in primary care and community settings. Specific efficacy outcomes included CVD-related hospitalizations, rehospitalizations, and mortality.

Materials and methods: We searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in MEDLINE, Scopus, EMBASE, CINAHL, and CENTRAL from the date of each database's inception to January 2020. The literature search retrieved 9,181 articles, which were screened by two independent raters. Twenty-two of these articles were included in the systematic review. Data extraction, risk of bias assessment, and narrative synthesis followed article screening.

Results: This systematic review found that integrated telehealth is efficacious in reducing CVD-related hospitalizations, rehospitalizations, and mortality in older, multimorbid adults within primary care and community settings. However, numerous discrepancies existed between the studies, due largely to differences in telehealth modalities and risk of bias. Overall, the combinations of modalities were so diverse that the reviewed literature did not suggest an optimal integrated telehealth strategy. At most, no more than three studies featured the same combination of telehealth modalities and outcomes. Furthermore, only 3 of the 22 included RCTs scored low on the Cochrane risk of bias tool.

Conclusions: Researchers should focus on the quality of future RCTs to better assess the efficacy of different telehealth modalities in multimorbid older adults with HF. Also, since all the included RCTs focused on HF, a knowledge gap exists with regard to the efficacy of using integrated telehealth to manage other cardiovascular diseases (CVD).