Leveraging telemedicine for management of veterans with heart failure during COVID-19.
Shelly S de Peralta, Boback Ziaeian, Donald S Chang and 3 others
PMID 33625164WHAT IT FOUND
All in-person heart failure appointments were converted to telemedicine for 132 veterans, with zero no-shows from week three.
Video visits increased to 24%, but the report gives process counts, not clinical outcomes.
Key findings
01Nurse providers cared for 132 heart failure patients, with 100% conversion of face-to-face appointments to telemedicine and zero no-shows starting in the third week.
02Video-to-home use was below 5% in the first two weeks and increased to 24% during the eight-week data review.
03No appointments were converted from telemedicine to face-to-face.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
It is a descriptive service report with no control group, so the results cannot show that telemedicine caused better care than usual care. It reports process counts such as appointments converted and video use, not clinical outcomes such as death, hospitalization, or symptom change. The eight-week period was short, and the paper does not report longer-term use, safety, or emergency referral numbers. The patients had recent heart failure admissions, emergency visits, or difficult medication titration, so the workflow may not fit all heart failure patients.
Declared interests
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the 100% conversion and zero no-show rate as proof that telemedicine improves heart failure outcomes. The paper reports no comparator group and no mortality, readmission, or symptom outcomes; it describes a service workflow.