Observing Digital Cardiac Rehabilitation using myHeart During the First Wave of COVID-19: A Real-World Multicentre Evaluation

Objective: COVID-19 significantly impacted cardiac rehabilitation (CR) delivery. Service disruption left numerous patients without treatment access. Many healthcare teams made use of digital apps to support CR delivery and patients remotely. This evaluation aimed to analyse digital CR access from the myHeart interactive, cloud-based self-management app during the pandemic.

Methods: Five NHS secondary care CR services agreed to combine existing anonymised app data between Mar-Oct 2020 for 12-weeks to align as much as possible with traditional CR models.

Descriptive quantitative analyses of in-app CR education and exercise video access were performed. App usage feedback questionnaire were provided for clinicians and patient users.

Results: N=350/434(80.6%) patients activated myHeart. No statistically significant differences were observed across age groups (P=.332) or gender (P=.881) between users who activated myHeart and those who did not.

N=314/350(89.7%) users accessed 5,469 CR videos with N=313/314(99.7%) accessing 3,606 within the first 6-weeks of activation. No statistically significant differences were observed across gender (P=.978) or age group (P=.274) for education video views. Users with angina only diagnosis accessed more exercise videos than other reported diagnoses (P=.030). Patient user feedback responses showed a statistically significant increase in selfmanagement confidence following myHeart access (P=<.001).

Conclusion: Since COVID-19, digital health has advanced considerably and its benefits are becoming increasingly acknowledged. myHeart provided remote timely CR during service disruption. This evaluation is the beginning of a journey to understand app usage however further research is needed to fully understand the role digital health can play in the delivery of CR.