A review of seven years’ telecardiology experience

Abstract

We have reviewed a multidisciplinary, home-based, telecardiology service which has been used for follow-up of patients discharged early from hospital. In seven years of activity 12,576 calls have been received by 896 cardiac patients following the home based telecardiology programme: 239 patients with acute cardiac syndrome, 427 patients with chronic heart failure and 230 patients with arrhythmia. Follow-up ranged from 7–180 days. From the user's first contact with the call centre to the recording of the report took a mean time of 7–10 min. The telemedicine service is provided by a total of 14 service centre operators, 49 medical specialists, 39 nurses and 4 physiotherapists. In our experience, Web services are ideal to develop and to manage telemedicine services.