05/18/2026
Research presented by Rebecca N. Revell, BSN, RN, CCDS, at the HRS 2026 Health Equity Abstracts Award Session raises a question the field can no longer defer.
As remote monitoring has become standard of care in cardiac device management, a critical question has gone largely unexamined: whether that standard is being realized equally across all patient populations.
In an analysis of over 143,000 outreach calls across 100 clinics and 12 months, a significant disparity emerged: Spanish-speaking patients were 33% less likely to reconnect their CIED transmitters after automated outreach — even when language preference was accommodated.
The significance of this work extends beyond the disparity itself. Becca challenges the assumption that language-matched outreach constitutes equitable care, proposing instead that language may proxy for structural determinants — health literacy, trust in the healthcare system, technological access, and cultural norms that a standardized automated interaction cannot bridge. It is a framework the field would benefit from adopting more broadly.
Link to publication: https://lnkd.in/eTUg-5j6
