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Congestive heart failure (CHF) remains the most serious illness with over 5 million people suffering each year. The reality remains unchanged that one in five people die within five years of being diagnosed with CHF. This research adds new insight regarding the benefit of daily intensive in-home monitoring using a scripted in-home monitoring protocol appliance. This was a quantitative, quasi-experimental study. A retrospective approach was used to compare daily to less often in-home monitoring for CHF. Frequent Emergency Department episodes, rehospitalizations, increased lengths of hospital stay, and increasing health care costs signal the need to better address this problem. While this study did not find statistical significance, what this study did show was that there may be clinical significance that scripted, daily, intensive monitoring, and audio-visual in-home monitoring results in the same health care outcomes for CHF patients. The need remains finding strategies that will improve CHF health outcomes. These findings indicate that less costly in-home monitoring strategies may be of value in improving health outcomes for CHF patients.

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Dr. Vera Cigan DHA, RN works in medical simulation for a southeastern Michigan healthcare system. She has 30 years in critical care and Emergency nursing. This book describes her research work comparing in-home monitoring of congestive heart failure. Vera and her husband, live on a ten acre ranch with horses and a German Shepherd named Zeus.

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