eHealth in patients with congenital heart disease: a review

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Mobile health (mHealth), an advanced form of eHealth is expected to drastically change the field of traditional healthcare in the near future as wearables and mobile applications are rapidly increasing in number. The majority of patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) now reach adulthood and this relative young patient population seems particularly suited for mHealth, as they require lifelong follow-up, experience high morbidity burden, and were raised in this digital era. In patients with acquired heart disease the potential of eHealth has been demonstrated, yet data are still inconclusive.

Areas covered: In this review of the current literature we evaluated the effect of various eHealth interventions in patients with CHD. Our search resulted in a mere 10 studies, which comprised mostly of children or adolescents with severe CHD. Home-monitoring of saturation and weight through mHealth was found to be beneficial in patients after palliation procedures, and video conferencing was found to have a positive effect on anxiety and healthcare utilization.

Expert commentary: Due to high morbidity and mortality in patients with CHD and the promising results of eHealth interventions, further research is desperately needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Congenital heart disease
• eHealth
• mHealth
• telemonitoring
• mobile health

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

The work described in this study was carried out in the context of the e-Health Citrien program. The e-Health Citrien program is part of and funded by the Netherlands Federation of University Medical Centres (NFU). This work was also supported by Dutch Heart Foundation [grant number 2017 T 2].