Heart failure patients with atrial fibrillation benefit from remote patient management: insights from the TIM‐HF2 trial

AIMS: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a frequent comorbidity in patients with heart failure (HF). HF patients with AF are characterized by high morbidity and increased risk of hospitalizations. We assessed the effects of remote patient management (RPM) in HF patients with AF compared with usual care (UC) in the TIM‐HF2 trial. METHODS AND RESULTS: For this post‐hoc analysis, AF status at randomization was assessed in 1537 patients with HF. The primary outcome was the percentage of days lost due to unplanned cardiovascular hospital admissions or death of any cause. Around 966 patients had sinus rhythm (SR) and 571 had AF. The analysis showed a significant interaction between heart rhythm and all‐cause mortality (P for interaction = 0.001). AF patients had more days lost due to unplanned cardiovascular hospitalization than SR patients (7.53%, CI 6.01–9.05 vs. 4.90%, CI 3.98–5.82, ratio 1.54, P = 0.004) and higher all‐cause mortality (11.9%, CI 9.4–14.9 vs. 8.5%, CI 6.8–10.4, HR 0.66, CI 0.47–0.94, P = 0.029). Patients with AF randomized to RPM had significantly less days lost due to unplanned cardiovascular hospital admissions or all‐cause death (5.64%, CI 3.81–7.48) than patients with AF randomized to UC (9.37%, CI 6.98–11.76, ratio 0.60, P = 0.015). No difference was seen in SR patients (UC: 5.25%, CI 3.93–6.58, RPM: 4.55%, CI 3.27–5.83, ratio 0.87, P = 0.452). All‐cause mortality in AF patients was reduced with 9.2% (CI 6.1–13.2) in the RPM group compared with 14.5% (CI 10.7–18.1) in the UC group (HR 0.60, CI 0.36–1.00, P = 0.050). CONCLUSIONS: For patients with atrial fibrillation at study entry, RPM was associated with increased days alive out of hospital. Our results identify HF patients with atrial fibrillation as a promising target population for RPM.