{"doi":"10.1007/s11606-023-08478-9","title":"Informational Postcards Increase Engagement with Remote Monitoring Among Veterans with Pacemakers and Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillators: a Stepped-Wedge Randomized Controlled Trial","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Remote monitoring (RM) of pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) reduces morbidity and mortality. However, many patients are not adherent to RM. OBJECTIVE: To test the effect of informational postcards on RM adherence. DESIGN/PATIENTS: Stepped-wedge randomized controlled trial among Veterans with pacemakers and ICDs. INTERVENTION: In wave 1, Veterans who had sent at least 1 transmission within the past 2 years but had become non-adherent were randomly assigned to receive a postcard or no postcard. Those receiving postcards were randomized to 1 of 2 messages: (1) a\"warning\" postcard describing risks of non-adherence or (2) an \"encouraging\" postcard describing benefits of adherence. In wave 2, Veterans who had either not received a postcard in wave 1 or had since become non-adherent were mailed a postcard (again, randomized to 1 of 2 messages). Patients who did not send an RM transmission within 1 month were mailed a second, identical postcard. MAIN MEASURES: Transmission within 70 days. KEY RESULTS: Overall, 6351 Veterans were included. In waves 1 and 2, postcards were mailed to 5657 Veterans (2821 \"warning\" messages and 2836 \"encouraging\" messages). Wave 1 included 2178 Veterans as controls (i.e., not mailed a postcard), some of whom received a postcard in wave 2 if they remained non-adherent. In wave 2, 3473 postcards were sent. Of the 5657 patients mailed a postcard, 2756 (48.7%) sent an RM transmission within 70 days, compared to 530 (24.3%) of 2178 controls (absolute difference 24.4%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 22.2%, 26.6%). Of those who sent a transmission, 71.8% did so after the first postcard. Transmission rates at 70 days did not significantly differ between \"warning\" and \"encouraging\" messages (odds ratio 1.04, 95% CI 0.92, 1.18). CONCLUSIONS: Informational postcards led to a 24.4% absolute increase in adherence at 70 days among Veterans with pacemakers and ICDs who were non-adherent to RM.","journal":"Journal of General Internal Medicine","year":2024,"id":462899,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":7,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9606,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":426742,"name":"Merritt H. Raitt","orcid":"0000-0001-5638-7732","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":897022,"name":"Gary Tarasovsky","orcid":"0009-0000-9093-6299","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":6044,"name":"Mary A. Whooley","orcid":"0000-0002-5943-0078","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":39748,"name":"Sanket S. Dhruva","orcid":"0000-0003-0674-2032","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":604658,"name":"Megan McLaughlin","orcid":"0000-0002-9259-2984","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":54,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:04:24.680035Z","pmid":"38252247","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}