Impact of telemedical management on hospitalization and mortality in heart failure patients with diabetes: a post-hoc subgroup analysis of the TIM-HF2 trial

BACKGROUND: The TIM-HF2 study demonstrated that remote patient management (RPM) in a well-defined heart failure (HF) population reduced the percentage of days lost due to unplanned cardiovascular hospital admissions or all-cause death during 1-year follow-up (hazard ratio 0.80) and all-cause mortality alone (HR 0.70). Higher rates of hospital admissions and mortality have been reported in HF patients with diabetes compared with HF patients without diabetes. Therefore, in a post-hoc analysis of the TIM-HF2 study, we investigated the efficacy of RPM in HF patients with diabetes.

METHODS: TIM-HF2 study was a randomized, controlled, unmasked (concealed randomization), multicentre trial, performed in Germany between August 2013 and May 2018. HF-Patients in NYHA class II/III who had a HF-related hospital admission within the previous 12 months, irrespective of left ventricular ejection fraction, and were randomized to usual care with or without added RPM and followed for 1 year. The primary endpoint was days lost due to unplanned cardiovascular hospitalization or due to death of any cause. This post-hoc analysis included 707 HF patients with diabetes.

RESULTS: In HF patients with diabetes, RPM reduced the percentage of days lost due to cardiovascular hospitalization or death compared with usual care (HR 0.66, 95% CI 0.48-0.90), and the rate of all-cause mortality alone (HR 0.52, 95% CI 0.32-0.85). RPM was also associated with an improvement in quality of life (mean difference in change in global score of Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire score (MLHFQ): - 3.4, 95% CI - 6.2 to - 0.6).

CONCLUSION: These results support the use of RPM in HF patients with diabetes.

CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01878630.