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EMPOWER Trial

EMPOWER Trial

A remote monitoring program for patients with heart failure

Project status

Pilot/study with results

Collaborators

Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD 

Andrea Troxel, ScD

Innovation leads

Funding

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute 

Opportunity

Congestive heart failure is a major cause of morbidity, mortality, and cost. Disease management programs have shown promise in improving outcomes but lack firm evidence of effectiveness and scalability. 

Intervention 

A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania leveraged Way to Health to determine whether remote monitoring of diuretic adherence and weight changes with financial incentives reduces hospital readmissions or death following discharge with heart failure.  

The team enrolled 552 patients in the EMPOWER trial. Participants in the intervention arm received digital scales, electronic pill bottles for diuretic medication, and regret lottery incentives conditional on the previous day’s adherence to both medication and weight measurement. They also had the option to invite a support partner who would receive alerts about non-adherence. 

Impact 

There was no significant difference between the intervention and usual care groups for the combined outcome of all-cause inpatient readmission or death. There were 423 readmissions and 26 deaths in the control group and 377 readmissions and 23 deaths in the intervention group. 

Way to Health Specs

Learn more about the platform
Activity monitoring
Arms and randomization
Criteria-based rules
Dashboard view
Device integration
eConsent
EHR integration
Email
Enrollment
Gamification
Incentives
IVR
Multiple languages
Patient portal messaging
Patient-reported outcomes capture
Photo messaging
Remote patient monitoring
Schedule-based rules
Survey administration
Two-way texting
Vitals monitoring