Automated Hovering for Congestive Heart Failure Patients

Using a 2-arm, randomized, controlled trial (RCT) among congestive heart failure (CHF) patients at the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS), to test the effectiveness of applying automated hovering to improve outcomes among CHF patients at high risk of readmission. This will leverage the electronic medical record (EMR), the Penn Data Store (an electronic repository that can be used to identify study cohorts), and the NIH-funded Way to Health platform, which provides linkages between home-based remote monitoring devices and a server that can provide automated feedback to patients. The primary outcome will be hospital readmission rate during the 12 months of study enrollment. Secondary outcomes will include cost, medication adherence and death. The investigators will enroll CHF patients discharged from UPHS and randomize them to either: usual care with no additional intervention; or 1) the provision of wireless pill bottles and scales with daily lottery incentives to encourage daily adherence 2) asked to provide the name and contact information of a family member or friend to serve as their support partner 3) have their weights monitored for clinically significant threshold, with verified weight gains alerts sent to the managing physician through the EMR. Managing providers will also be sent a weekly report of all weight measurements from the electronic scale.