Nearly 60 percent of the 1.5 million patients with moderate or advanced heart failure are readmitted to the hospital within six to 12 months after their first hospital stay. In addition to this debilitating disease affecting the quality of life for heart failure patients, hospital readmissions are very costly, estimated to be as high as $20 billion in the U.S. However, recent research studies show new medical advances of wireless cardiac devices can keep heart patients healthy, out of the hospital and improve their quality of life. Moreover, these new technologies may help reduce the cost of heart failure hospitalizations and re-hospitalizations. For these and other reasons, wireless cardiac devices were named to Cleveland Clinics Top Ten Innovations for 2011 during the Clinics Innovations Summit in November.
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