In order to examine the issue of how home-based monitoring congestive heart failure (CHF) influences, it is important to dwell upon the existing qualitative data collected from the research performed in the last three years. The object of this critique is California-based research conducted in 2017 by scholars from the Sentrian Company and the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute (Kohn et al., 2017). As the major aim of the presented research was to establish how patients engaged in CHF monitoring could handle the additional burden of in-home monitoring, it will benefit critical analysis of the procedure’s potential effect on re-hospitalization.
When it comes to chronic diseases, it is of crucial importance to consider the possibility of self-control in order to avoid the high frequency of hospitalization. In the course of this study, a number of CHF patients were to assess their state when engaging in a home-based monitoring device known as the Wearable Device Monitoring Health Failure (WEAR-HeFT). The population of the study constituted 20 patients, with two being dropped out during the study.
With an overall study duration of 40-117 days, participants were later asked to fill the survey consisting of the ten statements correlated with the study. The five possible answers to the phrases varied on a scale from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” (Kohn et al., 2017). The ethics of the study presupposed estimating both inclusion and exclusion criteria, along with safety parameters that could potentially secure patients’ health complications after the study. In terms of the survey examination, it was estimated that some of the patients were not fully compliant with the study, creating some obstacles for future implications.
One of the major findings in the aforementioned studies constituted patients’ overall satisfaction with the utilization of in-home CHF monitoring devices. According to their response, they had overall better health conditions as well as a greater sense of connection with their practitioners (Kohn et al., 2017). Such a result presupposes a positive answer to those devices’ beneficial outcomes for the overall re-hospitalization rate.
The study itself, although significant in terms of the issue investigation, still included some major limitations. For instance, a small group of patients was chosen as a result of care providers’ recommendations, implying their already satisfying relationship prior to the study. Another severe drawback concerns the authors’ disability to conduct an exhaustive comparative study due to the absence of a control group. Taking all the discussion section of the article into consideration, it may be estimated that the conducted study served as a starting point for further examination of the issue without having major significance in terms of findings.
Briefly, the article discussed above concerning qualitative research on the subject of patients having CHF ability to comply with in-home monitoring in order to reduce the re-hospitalization rate. The future implication of the study may consider engaging more unbiased participants in the examination, using similar, nevertheless extended survey patterns. The application of this practice can contribute to the overall promotion of specialized devices for monitoring health conditions and enhancing the frequency of communication with doctors without the need to be hospitalized. In order to take a closer look at the study, it is of significant importance to consider the study according to the patterns of conducting qualitative research. Such an analysis, additionally to the following critique, may be found in the John Hopkins Research Appraisal Tool.
Reference
Kohn, M. S., Haggard, J., Kreindler, J., Birkeland, K., Kedan, I., Zimmer, R., & Khandwalla, R. (2017). Implementation of a home monitoring system for heart failure patients: a feasibility study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(3).