UMMS Affiliation

School of Medicine; Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences; Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine; Department of Family Medicine and Community Health

Publication Date

2021-08-23

Document Type

Article

Disciplines

Biomedical Devices and Instrumentation | Cardiology | Cardiovascular Diseases | Infectious Disease | Telemedicine | Virus Diseases

Abstract

Background: Telemedicine and commercial wearable devices capable of detecting atrial fibrillation (AF) have revolutionized arrhythmia care during coronavirus disease 2019. However, not much is known about virtual patient-provider interactions or device sharing behaviors.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to characterize how participants with or at risk of AF are engaging with their providers in the context of telemedicine and using commercially wearable devices to manage their health.

Methods: We developed a survey to describe participant behaviors around telemedicine encounters and commercial wearable device use. The survey was distributed to participants diagnosed with AF or those at risk of AF (as determined by being at least 65 years old and having a CHA2DS2-VASc stroke risk score of > 2) in the University of Massachusetts Memorial Health Care system.

Results: The survey was distributed to 23,530 patients, and there were 1222 (5.19%) participant responses. Among the participants, 327 (26.8%) had AF and 895 (73.2%) were at risk of AF. Neither device ownership nor device type use differed by AF status. After adjusting for covariates that may influence surveyed participant communication patterns, we found that participants with AF were more likely to share their wearable device-derived data with providers (adjusted odds ratio 1.87; 95% confidence interval 1.02-3.41). Rates of sharing physical activity or sleep data were low for both groups and did not differ by AF status.

Conclusion: Compared with participants at risk of developing AF, those with AF were more likely to share heart rate and rhythm data from their commercial wearable devices with providers. However, both groups had similar rates of sharing physical activity and sleep data, telemedicine engagement, and technology use and ownership.

Keywords

Atrial fibrillation, Cardiacdata, Commercial wearable device, Data sharing behavior, Telehealth, Telemedicine

Rights and Permissions

Copyright © 2021 Heart Rhythm Society. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

DOI of Published Version

10.1016/j.cvdhj.2021.08.001

Source

Nuvvula S, Ding EY, Saleeba C, Shi Q, Wang Z, Kapoor A, Saczynski JS, Lubitz SA, Kovell LC, McKee MD, McManus DD. NExUS-Heart: Novel examinations using smart technologies for heart health-Data sharing from commercial wearable devices and telehealth engagement in participants with or at risk of atrial fibrillation. Cardiovasc Digit Health J. 2021 Aug 23;2(5):256-263. doi: 10.1016/j.cvdhj.2021.08.001. PMID: 35265917; PMCID: PMC8890085. Link to article on publisher's site

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Cardiovascular digital health journal

Related Resources

Link to Article in PubMed

PubMed ID

35265917

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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