Remote monitoring of implanted cardiac devices: a plea for a nationwide exploration

In Western countries, the yearly implantation rates of cardiac devices have grown markedly in the past decades because of the introduction of new indications and ageing of the population. Nowadays the distribution of new implantations of conventional pacemakers (PMs), cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) devices and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) is approximately 81, 11 and 8% of all implantations.1 This development requires more face-to-face visits for the device patient, with or without device checks. Not only the total number of those patient contacts has increased but for specific patient categories the number of contacts per patient has also grown markedly. The latter is related to the complexity of the cardiac abnormality, progressive comorbidity and polypharmacy of the mostly elderly device recipients. It has to be recognised that clear differences exist between patients with conventional PMs and those with CRT and ICD in terms of prognosis, attitude, quality of life and health perception, all factors that also determine the frequency and intensity of the outpatient controls. …