• Improve the quality of life of the patients.
• Reduce mortality in patients with heart failure.
• Reduce hospitalizations and costs.

Facts about Congestive Heart Failure  and Epidemiological background

• Nearly 5 million Americans are living with heart failure, and between 400,000 and 550,000 new cases are diagnosed each year in the US alone according to either the Heart Failure Society of America, or the Amercian Heart Association.
• In the UK 5 studies lead between 1991 and 1999 have calculated an average heart failure prevalence for men between 45 and 84 years of 3.2% and 2.57% for woman of the same age (Sources: Morbidity Statistics from General Practice, Fourth National Study 1991-1992 (1995); Mair FS et al (1996) British Journal of General Practice; McDonagh TA et al (1997) The Lancet; Davies MK et al (2001) British Journal of General Practice).
• J-M Gaspoz has stated that with the aging of the population and the advancing age of the baby boom generation, the situation will worsen: the prevalence of congestive heart failure in Europe may increase by 70% by the year 2010.(Gaspoz J-M. Coûts et bénéfices du traitement de l'insuffisance cardiaque; Schweiz Med Wochenschr 1999;129:131-7).
• The population of patients with heart failure, todays primary target of tele-monitoring devices, is rapidly growing and reaches > 3% of the population;
• As early as 1996, CHF is the first-listed diagnosis in 875,000 hospitalizations in the US, and the most common diagnosis in hospital patients age 65 years and older (NHLBI, Congestive Heart Failure Data Fact Sheet);
• CHF is the main cause of hospitalization for patients aged 65 or over, and it absorbs 2% of the health care budget in industrialized countries (Gaspoz J-M. Coûts et bénéfices du traitement de l'insuffisance cardiaque; Schweiz Med Wochenschr 1999;129:131.7);
• Heart failure is the most common discharge diagnosis for patients over 65;
• Costs for heart failure are very high ($25 billion for outpatient costs and 25$ billion for hospitalizations annually in the US);