By James Allred, M.D. and Amber Seiler, N.P.
Remote monitoring has transformed cardiac device care. It allows clinicians to identify issues earlier, monitor patients between visits, and manage growing patient populations more efficiently than traditional in-office follow-up alone.
But remote monitoring only works when patients stay connected. That sounds simple but in reality, it has become one of the biggest operational challenges facing device clinics today.
The 2023 Heart Rhythm Society guidelines reinforced the importance of maintaining patient connectivity for cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs). Yet many clinics are struggling to keep up. Limited staffing, increasing patient volumes, competing priorities, and fragmented technology environments make connectivity management difficult to sustain internally.
Our team wanted to better understand an important question:
Can a dedicated third-party connectivity team meaningfully improve patient connectivity at scale? The results were striking.
The Hidden Operational Burden Behind “Disconnected” Patients
When a patient becomes disconnected from remote monitoring, clinics lose visibility into critical device data. That creates several downstream problems:
- Missed or delayed transmissions
- Gaps in patient surveillance
- Increased manual workload for clinic staff
- Reduced operational efficiency
- Potential impacts to compliance and reimbursement
- Patient safety concerns if actionable events are missed.
What many people outside of device clinic operations do not realize is how resource-intensive reconnecting patients can be. It often requires:
- Reviewing multiple technology platforms and EMRs
- Repeated patient outreach attempts
- Troubleshooting connectivity issues
- Educating patients on equipment and setup
- Ongoing follow-up to prevent repeat disconnections
For already overextended device clinic teams, this work can quickly become overwhelming.
Testing a Dedicated “Stay Connected” Model
To address this challenge, a dedicated Stay Connected team was implemented across fifteen U.S. clinics. At the start of the study:
- 5,540 CIED patients were disconnected
- Approximately 9% of all active monitored patients had lost connectivity
The Stay Connected team worked across:
- Three separate CIED databases
- Four different EMR systems
- Multiple clinic workflows and operational environments
The approach combined technology-enabled workflows with direct patient outreach, primarily through phone-based engagement. The team averaged:
- 15 patient calls per hour
- More than 3,500 patient calls per month
This was not a passive monitoring strategy. It was a high-touch operational program designed specifically to maintain continuity of remote monitoring.
The Results: A 93% Reduction in Disconnected Patients
The impact was both rapid and sustained.
Within the first 60 days:
- Disconnected patients decreased by 68%
By the end of the seven-month study:
- Disconnected CIEDs were reduced by 93% across participating clinics
- Monthly disconnected rates dropped from 8.6% to just 0.59%
Those numbers represent more than operational improvement. They represent thousands of patients restored to active clinical visibility.
Why This Matters for Device Clinics
The industry often talks about remote monitoring as a technology challenge. In reality, many of the biggest barriers are operational.
Connectivity management is not simply an IT function. It requires:
- Dedicated workflows
- Patient engagement
- Process standardization
- Ongoing monitoring
- Staff capacity
- Cross-platform coordination
As device clinic volumes continue to grow, many organizations are reevaluating whether maintaining connectivity should remain an internal administrative burden or become part of a specialized support model.
The findings from this study suggest that a dedicated third-party connectivity team can play a meaningful role in helping clinics:
- Reduce workload burden
- Improve operational consistency
- Maintain compliance with guideline expectations
- Keep patients actively connected to care
Connectivity Is Not a One-Time Fix
One of the most important insights from this work is that reconnecting patients is only part of the solution. Long-term success depends on preventing patients from becoming disconnected again.
That means clinics need sustainable processes around:
- Patient education
- Ongoing outreach
- Escalation workflows
- Monitoring protocols
- Connectivity reporting and accountability
The future of remote monitoring is not simply about collecting more data. It is about building scalable systems that ensure patients remain continuously connected to care. As remote monitoring programs expand, connectivity management will only become more important, not less. And for many clinics, solving that challenge may require rethinking how operational support is delivered.
This perspective is informed by a recent abstract led by Caylee Zuchowski, M.D., Cara Jones MBA, Amber Seiler, N.P., and James Allred, M.D. You can view the abstract here
If your clinic is struggling with disconnected patients, staffing constraints, or growing remote monitoring demands, we’d welcome the opportunity to talk through your current workflows and explore where operational support may help. Consult with one of our clinicians to learn more.