MONTREAL – Home telemonitoring of chronic diseases appears to be a promising approach to patient management, says a team of Canadian scholars who reviewed more than 65 telemonitoring studies in the United States and Europe.

　　The study, entitled “Systematic Review of Home Telemonitoring for Chronic Diseases: The Evidence Base,” appeared in the May/June 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association .

　　Researchers at the University of Montreal in Quebec, Canada, searched the Medline and Cochrane Library databases for research studies on telemonitoring published between 1990 and 2006. The 65 papers they examined included studies on the home-based management of chronic pulmonary conditions, cardiac diseases, diabetes, and hypertension. Each of the studies employed various information technologies that were used to monitor patients at a distance.

　　The Canadian scholars, led by Guy Paré of the University of Montreal's Health Administration department, concluded that home telemonitoring produces accurate and reliable data, empowers patients and influences their attitudes and behaviors, and may improve their medical conditions.

　　Paré and his colleagues claimed that the magnitude and significance of the effects that telemonitoring has on patients' conditions still remains inconclusive. Nevertheless, the study's results suggest that patients will comply with telemonitoring programs and appear to embrace the IT involved. This seemed to be true regardless of a patient's nationality, socioeconomic status, or age.

　　The study did find differences in home telemonitoring's effects on clinical effectiveness outcomes, such as decreases in emergency room visits, hospital admissions, and average length of hospital stays. The effects of telemonitoring tended to be more consistent in pulmonary and cardiac studies than in studies on diabetes and hypertension.

　　While home telemonitoring of chronic disease conditions may hold promise for the future, Paré and his colleagues caution that the economic viability of telemonitoring was observed in only a few of the studies they examined. In most cases, they assert, the researchers directing the studies performed no in-depth cost minimization analyses. More rigorous research on home telemonitoring is required, the authors write, “for insurance companies and governments to consider future endorsement of this patient management approach, and subsequent reimbursement for the services provided.”