OBJECTIVES: Remote monitoring strategies (RM) have the potential to deliver specialised care and management to patients with stable heart failure (HF).  This review sought to determine whether RM improves outcomes for adults with stable HF (defined as having no acute event or deterioration in the past 28 days) who are managed in the community (ambulatory or outpatient care setting).   METHODS: Fourteen electronic databases covering the biomedical, scientific and grey literature were searched to November 2013, and supplemented by hand-searching relevant articles.  Two reviewers independently extracted all relevant data.  All randomised controlled trials (RCTs) were included.  RM interventions included home telemonitoring (TM) with medical support provided during office hours or 24/7 and structured telephone support (STS) programmes delivered via human-to-human contact (HH) or human-to-machine (voice-activated) interface (HM). RESULTS: Eighteen RCTs were included in the systematic review.  Compared with usual care, the network meta-analysis showed that RM was beneficial in reducing all-cause mortality for STS HH (Hazard Ratio, HR: 0.87, 95% Credible Interval, CrI: 0.66, 1.15), TM during office hours (HR: 0.81, 95% CrI: 0.57, 1.16) and TM 24/7 (HR: 0.85, 95% CrI: 0.57, 1.26); however, these were statistically inconclusive.  No favourable effect on mortality was observed with STS HM.  Similarly, trends in reducing HF-related hospitalisations were also observed for all RM interventions.   CONCLUSIONS: STS HH and TM with medical support provided during office hours or 24/7 showed beneficial trends, particularly in reducing all-cause mortality for patients with stable HF.  However, due to the complex nature of RM interventions (including between study heterogeneity within each category), further research should seek to examine the ‘active ingredients’ of RM strategies including suitability of different systems and qualitative research (patient, partners or carers’ experiences) to understand the processes by which RM works.