title: Integrating monitoring into the infrastructure and workflow of routine practice: OptiVol.
abstract: New cardiac resynchronization devices that monitor intrathoracic impedance may be utilized to monitor intravascular fluid status in chronic heart failure patients. Incorporating these devices into a heart failure medical practice requires the integration of heart failure medical services and electrophysiology. These devices must be interrogated and the data analyzed if the diagnostic information is to be useful in the care of heart failure patients. Device generated time aligned trends should be interpreted in the context of clinical findings. Systems must be well designed to deal with the results of solicited and unsolicited data.
authors.affiliation: Heart Failure Clinic, Heart Group; Heart Failure Service, Lancaster General Hospital, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA.
authors.forename: Roy
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Small
mesh_terms: D002307:Cardiography, Impedance / Q000295:instrumentation; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D042241:Early Diagnosis; D004489:Edema, Cardiac / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology; D015716:Electrocardiography, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D008498:Medical Record Linkage; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D010138:Pacemaker, Artificial; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'