ChristianaCare sees success in their efforts to improve outcomes for heart patients.
Story Health, a digital hybrid platform adopted by ChristianaCare, supplies patients with a dedicated health coach that works in conjunction with their clinician.
The idea is to improve care by addressing gaps in treatment, including accessing medication.
The coach will work with a patient to record symptoms, blood pressure readings, and other health indicators, and then coordinate with the physician to facilitate any changes in their treatment plan.
“One of the key things they help us with is assisting with some of the financial challenges patients are facing in getting their medication. Many of the heart failure medications are newer, so they can be expensive, and so the health coaches help us with identifying programs that exist that make those medications more affordable so patients can actually get those medications,” explained Roger Kerzener, Chief Medical Officer in the ChristianaCare Medical Group.
The new program also addresses racial disparities in heart failure treatment.
Doctors have historically underprescribed the standard medication to treat heart failure to Black patients.
This contributes to the fact that nationally, Black Americans have a 30% greater risk of dying from heart disease than white Americans.
Kerzener says the most robust outcome they're seen from using Story Health is the change in the percentage of patients that are on the needed medication at the needed doses.
“So historically, African Americans are not on all of the medication, at the doses they need, relative to white patients,” he explained. “But with this program we’ve actually seen that for those who have enrolled, that disparity no longer exists.”
All of the patients enrolled in the program have shown considerable success.
But for Black patients, the change in treatment is staggering.
On average, there has been 6x improvement on target doses of beta blockers (76%), 7x improvement on target doses ACE/ARB/ARNIs (54%), and 2x improvement on target doses of MRAs (57%).
As a result of the program’s success in cardiology, ChristianaCare’s Center for Virtual Health is working to expand the model to other areas of care.
