Simplifying coronary artery disease risk stratification: development and validation of a questionnaire-based alternative comparable to clinical risk tools.

Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) comprises one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality both in the European population and globally. All established clinical risk stratification scores and models require blood lipids and physical measurements. The latest reports of the European Commission suggest that attracting health professionals to collect these data can be challenging, both from a logistic and cost perspective, which limits the usefulness of established models and makes them unsuitable for population-wide screening in resource-limited settings, i.

The effect and implementation of the COVID Box, a remote patient monitoring system for patients with a COVID-19 infection in primary care: a matched cohort study.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the pressure on hospitals increased tremendously. To alleviate this pressure, a remote patient monitoring system called the COVID Box was developed and implemented in primary care. The aim was to assess whether the COVID Box in primary care could reduce emergency department (ED) referrals due to a COVID-19 infection.

Participatory Development of an Integrated, eHealth-Supported, Educational Care Pathway (Diabetes Box) for People With Type 2 Diabetes: Development and Usability Study.

Background: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) tremendously affects patient health and health care globally. Changing lifestyle behaviors can help curb the burden of T2D. However, health behavior change is a complex interplay of medical, behavioral, and psychological factors.

Patient and Staff Experience of Remote Patient Monitoring-What to Measure and How: Systematic Review.

Background: Patient and staff experience is a vital factor to consider in the evaluation of remote patient monitoring (RPM) interventions. However, no comprehensive overview of available RPM patient and staff experience-measuring methods and tools exists.

Objective: This review aimed at obtaining a comprehensive set of experience constructs and corresponding measuring instruments used in contemporary RPM research and at proposing an initial set of guidelines for improving methodological standardization in this domain.

Use Intention and User Expectations of Human-Supported and Self-Help eHealth Interventions: Internet-Based Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Self-help eHealth interventions provide automated support to change health behaviors without any further human assistance. The main advantage of self-help eHealth interventions is that they have the potential to lower the workload of health care professionals. However, one disadvantage is that they generally have a lower uptake.

Identifying barriers and facilitators to adopting healthier dietary choices in clinical care: a cross-sectional observational study.

Background And Aims: Adopting healthier diets can drastically improve societal health. Our environment plays a crucial role in daily dietary choices and hospitals in particular can stimulate patients to adopt healthier eating habits. Unfortunately, no robust clinically applicable cuing tools exist to help guide in-hospital dietary interventions.

How to Use Costs in Value-Based Healthcare: Learning from Real-life Examples.

Background: Healthcare organizations measure costs for business operations but do not routinely incorporate costs in decision-making on the value of care.

Aim: Provide guidance on how to use costs in value-based healthcare (VBHC) delivery at different levels of the healthcare system.

Setting And Participants: Integrated practice units (IPUs) for diabetes mellitus (DM) and for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) at the Leiden University Medical Center and a collaboration of seven breast cancer IPUs of the Santeon group, all in the Netherlands.

Effectiveness of Human-Supported and Self-Help eHealth Lifestyle Interventions for Patients With Cardiometabolic Risk Factors: A Meta-Analysis.

Objective: eHealth is a useful tool to deliver lifestyle interventions for patients with cardiometabolic diseases. However, there are inconsistent findings about whether these eHealth interventions should be supported by a human professional, or whether self-help interventions are equally effective.

Methods: Databases were searched between January 1995 and October 2021 for randomized controlled trials on cardiometabolic diseases (cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, type 1 and 2 diabetes mellitus) and eHealth lifestyle interventions.

Mobile health for cardiovascular risk management after cardiac surgery: results of a sub-analysis of The Box 2.0 study.

Aims: Lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C) and blood pressure (BP) levels to guideline recommended values reduces the risk of major adverse cardiac events in patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). To improve cardiovascular risk management, this study evaluated the effects of mobile health (mHealth) on BP and cholesterol levels in patients after standalone CABG.

Methods And Results: This study is a analysis of an observational cohort study among 228 adult patients who underwent standalone CABG surgery at a tertiary care hospital in The Netherlands.

Lifestyle support preferences of patients with cardiovascular diseases: What lifestyle support might work best for whom?

Background: Lifestyle support is essential in preventing and treating cardiovascular diseases (CVD), and eHealth may be an easy and affordable solution to provide this support. However, CVD patients vary in their ability and interest to use eHealth. This study investigates demographic characteristics determining CVD patients' online and offline lifestyle support preferences.

Optimizing Smoking Cessation Counseling in a University Hospital: Results and Pitfalls.

Background: Healthcare professionals (HPs) can play a substantial role in smoking cessation counseling (SCC) but in practice often skip this task due to time constraints. This study evaluates the implementation of the rapid Ask-Advise-Connect (AAC) method in a University hospital setting.

Methods: This mixed methods pre-post interventional study was performed at the Cardiology department of a University hospital and consisted of (1) a quantitative assessment of patient smoking registration and HP connection rates to external SCC from the Electronic Medical Record, (2) semi-structured interviews with 10 HPs to assess their attitudes toward AAC, and (3) a blended intervention aimed to implement AAC.

An omission in guidelines. Cardiovascular disease prevention should also focus on dietary policies for healthcare facilities.

Suboptimal diet is a major modifiable risk factor in cardiovascular disease. Governments, individuals, educational institutes, healthcare facilities and the industry all share the responsibility to improve dietary habits. Healthcare facilities in particular present a unique opportunity to convey the importance of healthy nutrition to patients, visitors and staff.

Setting your clock: associations between timing of objective physical activity and cardiovascular disease risk in the general population.

Aims: Little is known about the impact of daily physical activity timing (here referred to as 'chronoactivity') on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. We aimed to examined the associations between chronoactivity and multiple CVD outcomes in the UK Biobank.

Methods And Results: physical activity data were collected in the UK-Biobank through triaxial accelerometer over a 7-day measurement period.

COVID-box Experiences of Patients and Health Care Professionals (COVID-box Project): Single-Center, Retrospective, Observational Study.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, several home monitoring programs have described the success of reducing hospital admissions, but only a few studies have investigated the experiences of patients and health care professionals.

Objective: The objective of our study was to determine patients' and health care professionals' experiences and satisfaction with employing the COVID-box.

Methods: In this single-center, retrospective, observational study, patients and health care professionals were asked to anonymously fill out multiple-choice questionnaires with questions on a 5-point or 10-point Likert scale.

Sbk2, a Newly Discovered Atrium-Enriched Regulator of Sarcomere Integrity.

Background: Heart development relies on tight spatiotemporal control of cardiac gene expression. Genes involved in this intricate process have been identified using animals and pluripotent stem cell-based models of cardio(myo)genesis. Recently, the repertoire of cardiomyocyte differentiation models has been expanded with iAM-1, a monoclonal line of conditionally immortalized neonatal rat atrial myocytes (NRAMs), which allows toggling between proliferative and differentiated (ie, excitable and contractile) phenotypes in a synchronized and homogenous manner.

The Box-eHealth in the Outpatient Clinic Follow-up of Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction: Cost-Utility Analysis.

Background: Smartphone compatible wearables have been released on the consumers market, enabling remote monitoring. Remote monitoring is often named as a tool to reduce the cost of care.

Objective: The primary purpose of this paper is to describe a cost-utility analysis of an eHealth intervention compared to regular follow-up in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI).

Emergency Heart failure Mortality Risk Grade may help to reduce heart failure admissions.

Introduction: Hospital admissions for heart failure (HF) are frequent and pose a heavy burden on health care resources. Currently, the decision to hospitalise is based on clinical judgement rather than on prognostic risk stratification. The Emergency Heart failure Mortality Risk Grade (EHMRG) was recently developed to identify high-risk HF patients in the emergency department (ED).

A Preoperative Virtual Reality App for Patients Scheduled for Cardiac Catheterization: Pre-Post Questionnaire Study Examining Feasibility, Usability, and Acceptability.

Background: Pre- and postoperative anxiety is a common phenomenon associated with negative postoperative outcomes. Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, such as fear, nightmares, and sleep deprivation, are prevalent in approximately 30% to 50% of patients following discharge from intensive care units after cardiac surgery. Preliminary evidence suggests a promising role of virtual reality (VR) in preventing stress-related reactions using stress inoculation training.

Clarifying responsibility: professional digital health in the doctor-patient relationship, recommendations for physicians based on a multi-stakeholder dialogue in the Netherlands.

Background: Implementation of digital health (eHealth) generally involves adapting pre-established and carefully considered processes or routines, and still raises multiple ethical and legal dilemmas. This study aimed to identify challenges regarding responsibility and liability when prescribing digital health in clinical practice. This was part of an overarching project aiming to explore the most pressing ethical and legal obstacles regarding the implementation and adoption of digital health in the Netherlands, and to propose actionable solutions.

Facilitators of and Barriers to Lifestyle Support and eHealth Solutions: Interview Study Among Health Care Professionals Working in Cardiac Care.

Background: Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) pose a significant health threat and reduce both people's life expectancy and quality of life. Healthy living is a key component in the effective prevention and treatment of CVD. However, health care professionals (HCPs) experience difficulties in supporting lifestyle changes among their patients.

Phosphorylcholine antibodies restrict infarct size and left ventricular remodelling by attenuating the unreperfused post-ischaemic inflammatory response.

Phosphorylcholine is a pro-inflammatory epitope exposed on apoptotic cells, and phosphorylcholine monoclonal immunoglobulin (Ig)G antibodies (PC-mAb) have anti-inflammatory properties. In this study, we hypothesize that PC-mAb treatment reduces adverse cardiac remodelling and infarct size (IS) following unreperfused transmural myocardial infarction (MI). Unreperfused MI was induced by permanent ligation of the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery in hypercholesterolaemic APOE*3-Leiden mice.

Experimental validation of absolute SPECT/CT quantification for response monitoring in patients with coronary artery disease.

Background: Quantitative SPECT enables absolute quantification of uptake in perfusion defects. The aim of this experimental study is to assess quantitative accuracy and precision of a novel iterative reconstruction technique (Evolution; GE Healthcare) for the potential application of response monitoring using Tc-tetrofosmin SPECT/CT in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD).

Methods: Acquisitions of an anthropomorphic torso phantom with cardiac insert containing defects (with varying sizes), filled with Tc-pertechnetate, were performed on a SPECT/CT (Discovery 670 Pro, GE Healthcare).