The excellent results of the HERMeS clinical trial, a pioneer in the application of telemedicine and mHealth in Heart Failure, have been presented at the Heart Failure 2023 Congress, which took place between May 20 and 23 in Prague (Republic of Czech). The BIO-HEART cardiovascular disease research group of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) and the Bellvitge University Hospital (HUB) led the clinical trial.
During the Late-Breaking Science session, Dr. Sergi Yun Viladomat, an eHealth expert and specialist in the Internal Medicine Department of the HUB and researcher of the BIO-HEART research group, presented the main results of this multicenter, controlled, open-label clinical trial and with blind adjudication of clinical events carried out in ten centers in Spain, which has combined telemonitoring and teleintervention with videoconference using mobile technology (mHealth) in patients with high-risk heart failure (after hospitalization due to decompensation of their disease).
Active participation of IDIBELL, HUB, and Primary Care
In addition, to presenting the results of the HERMeS trial, Dr. Josep Comín-Colet, head of the BIO-HEART research group at IDIBELL and director of the Cardiology Service at Hospital de Bellvitge, has presented a work about the influence of gender on HF patients managed in integrated health systems. For his part, Dr. José González-Costello, principal investigator at IDIBELL and coordinator of the HUB’s Advanced Heart Failure Unit, and president of the Heart Failure Association of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC), has given a tutorial on effective patient management and protection from sudden cardiac death in the acute phase in patients with newly diagnosed HF.
The IDIBELL researchers and specialists from the Bellvitge Hospital, doctors Lídia Alcoberro, Santiago Jiménez-Marrero, Raúl Ramos Polo, María del Mar Ras Jiménez, and the family and community doctor and reference point for cardiovascular disease, Blanca Torres, have also presented ePosters and their corresponding oral communications in relation to different topics that are the subject of study within the research group in the field of heart failure: applicability of digital solutions and study of their role in quality of life and self-care, evaluation and impact of comorbidities such as iron deficiency or hyperkalaemia and epidemiological studies on the evolution of patients with heart failure in our territory and its comparison with the rest of Catalonia based on age, sex and adjusted morbidity groups (GMAs).
Heart Failure is the annual congress of the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), which aims to improve the quality and life expectancy through better prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of heart failure by establishing knowledge networks for management, training, and research. Health professionals from more than 150 countries meet and cooperate to advance cardiovascular medicine together.