Technology-enhanced practice for patients with chronic cardiac disease: Home implementation and evaluation

OBJECTIVE This 3 year field experiment engaged 60 nurses and 282 patients in the design and evaluation of an innovative home care nursing model referred to as technology enhanced practice (TEP) METHODS Nurses using TEP augmented the usual care with a web based resource (HeartCareII) that provided patients with self management information self monitoring tools and messaging services RESULTS Patients exposed to TEP demonstrated better quality of life and self management of chronic heart disease during the first 4 weeks and were no more likely than patients in usual care to make unplanned visits to a clinician or hospital Both groups demonstrated the same long term symptom management and achievements in health status CONCLUSION This project provides new evidence that the purposeful creation of patient tailored web resources within a hospital portal is possible that nurses have difficulty with modifying their practice routines even with a highly tailored web resource and that the benefits of this intervention are more discern able in the early postdischarge stages of care (Heart Lung (R) 2010 39 S34-S46)