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Denise Guckel, Mustapha El Hamriti, Sebastian Rojas Hernandez, Henrik Fox, Angelika Costard-Jäckle, Jan Gummert, Thomas Fink, Vanessa Sciacca, Khuraman Isgandarova, Martin Braun, Moneeb Khalaph, Guram Imnadze, René Schramm, Michiel Morshuis, Philipp Sommer, Christian Sohns

• The telemonitoring of heart failure (HF) patients is becoming increasingly important. This study aimed to evaluate the benefit of telemonitoring in end-stage HF patients with a ventricular-assistance device (VAD). A total of 26 HF-patients (66 \(\pm\) 11 years, 88% male) on VAD therapy with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) or a cardiac resynchronization defibrillator (CRT-D) including telemonitoring function were enrolled. The long-term follow-up data (4.10 \(\pm\) 2.58 years) were assessed. All the patients (\(\it n\) = 26, 100%) received daily ICD/CRT-D telemonitoring. In most of the patients (73%, \(\it n\) = 19), the telemedical center had to take action for a mean of three times. An acute alert due to sustained ventricular arrhythmias (VAs) occurred in 12 patients (63%) with 50% of them (\(\it n\) = 6) requiring ICD shock delivery. Eight patients (67%) were hospitalized due to symptomatic VAs. In 11 patients (92%), immediate medication adjustments were recommended. Relevant lead issues were revealed in thirteen patients (50%), with six patients (46%) undergoing consecutive lead revisions. Most of the events (83%) were detected within 24 h. Daily telemonitoring significantly reduced the number of in-hospital device controls by 44% (\(\it p\) < 0.01). The telemonitoring ensured that cardiac arrhythmias and device/lead problems were identified early, allowing pre-emptive and prompt interventions. In addition, the telemonitoring significantly reduced the number of in-hospital device controls in this cohort of HF patients.