Older patients with heart, lung or kidney disease who were monitored with at-home electronic systems were just as likely to be sent to the emergency room or hospitalized as those who weren't monitored, in a new study…Dr. Paul Takahashi from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and his colleagues found that a year after getting their monitoring systems, patients in the telemonitoring group were still going to the ER and being hospitalized just as often as those without the systems. Sixty-four percent of telemonitoring patients visited the ER or were hospitalized during the study, compared to 57 percent of the usual-care comparison group.
Additional coverage: Chicago Tribune
Reuters by Genevra Pittman 4/15/12
Tags: Dr. Paul Takahashi, Mayo Clinic Rochester, Research, telemonitoring