September 14, 2010 –To support proactive patient care for those at risk for worsening heart failure, Medtronic this week introduced the CareLink Network for Heart Failure. The remote monitoring system is an extension of the current CareLink system for implantable cardiac device monitoring system. The new system will be available this fall.
The patient management solution provides heart failure physicians and nurses with important device data, which can help them better manage their patients. With CareLink for Heart Failure, clinicians remotely monitor heart failure device patients and their implantable cardiac device diagnostics, such as the OptiVol Fluid Status Monitoring and Cardiac Compass Reports, which together may help identify patients at risk of worsening heart failure.
Heart failure is the most expensive cardiovascular disease in the United States, costing an estimated $40 billion per year and accounts for more than one million hospitalizations annually.
“Leveraging the cardiac device information and the new patient management program, I’m able to better manage my growing number of heart failure patients with timely data about their heart condition and changes,” said J. Thomas Heywood, M.D., director of heart failure program at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, Calif. “This allows me to provide proactive patient management with a goal of reducing hospitalizations of my high-risk heart failure patients.”
The new CareLink for Heart Failure program makes it easier for clinicians to monitor heart failure patients with implantable cardiac devices, including cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) devices, which improve the heart’s pumping efficiency or blood flow, and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) for patients at risk of sudden cardiac death or deadly arrhythmias. Remote monitoring has been shown to safely reduce the number of clinic visits and save patients and physicians time on follow-up visits.
The CareLink Network for Heart Failure provides customizable CareAlert Notifications to help clinicians identify cardiac device patients at risk for worsening symptoms.
The CareLink Network provides the most flexible alert system in the industry offering customizable alert notifications for devices with Conexus Wireless Telemetry. Through this network, patient data are transmitted from their implanted device using a portable monitor through cellular signals or a standard telephone line. Within minutes, the patient’s physician and nurses can view the data on a secure Internet website. Available information includes, but is not limited to, arrhythmia episode reports and stored electrocardiograms along with device integrity information.
For more information: www.medtronic.com
January 23, 2024 
