The Fluid Heart Tracker app allows heart failure patients to capture their weight every day, in an easy-to-use mobile app.

Weight is one way to identify if heart failure is getting worse or if changes to medication are required to control extra fluid.

A mobile app which has been developed in collaboration between the Irish Heart Foundation, Team OSVX, and PerCen Technologies, is a self-care tool that removes the need for written weight logs and ensures the patient is alerted when their weight increases by more than two kilograms in a seven-day period, which can be a sign of worsening heart failure.

The Fluid Heart Tracker app was developed in response to a patient need, identified by Clinical Nurse Specialist in Heart Failure, Norma Caples, and community heart failure nurse specialists around the country

Community heart failure nurses were concerned that their patients were hesitant to attend their GP or hospital with heart failure-related symptoms due to the risks of COVID-19. Norma first proposed this app to the Health Innovation Hub Ireland Spark Ignite 2020 and now, following significant user testing, it is available to download.

It is predicted that there may be a surge in heart failure as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic so this app may be beneficial in ensuring that resources, such as hospital beds, GP visits, and heart failure clinics, are used more effectively and efficiently.

Commenting on the new app Norma Capels said, “The heart failure service is critical to keeping a particularly vulnerable patient cohort well in the community. Heart failure patients have reported that they are afraid to go to their GP or hospital in case of contracting COVID-19. We need to try to manage their care as near as possible to their home. We must reassure and support them at this time.”

The app is available on iOS and Android and it’s easy to download. Simply click the icon below (compatible with your device) or scan the QR code.