CA Organization Implements AI, RPM to Improve Chronic Disease Management

California-based nonprofit healthcare organization Landon Pediatric Foundation (LPF) is partnering with Austin-based digital health company Vironix Health to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) and remote patient monitoring (RPM) to enhance care for patients with chronic heart and lung conditions.

Heart and lung conditions constitute a significant proportion of chronic disease diagnoses, healthcare service costs, and deaths in the US each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 6.2 million American adults have heart failure, which occurs when the heart cannot pump enough blood and oxygen to support the body’s other organs. In 2018 alone, heart failure was mentioned on 379,800, or 13.4 percent, of death certificates. In terms of costs, the US spent an estimated $30.7 billion on heart failure in 2012.

The new partnership is designed to leverage pulmonary and cardiovascular specialists' expertise in disease progression and patient care with AI-enabled RPM capabilities, creating more accessible care for patients and improving health outcomes. RPM can allow patients to access health services from their home, enable clinicians monitor patients’ health without seeing them in person, and potentially reduce some of the costs associated with traditional patient monitoring.

According to the press release, Vironix Health's AI software allows for the real-time health tracking and analytics of heart failure, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), COVID-19, and acute respiratory illness via biometric RPM devices, which can help improve health outcomes and increase patient engagement.

"Being able to monitor, predict, and intervene early on these horrible flare-ups of respiratory illness is invaluable to patient care, not only for patients' sakes but for their sons, daughters, partners, colleagues, and everyone who depends on them," said Christopher Landon, MD, pulmonologist and director of the Landon Foundation, in the press release. "Vironix's remote monitoring program has the right blend of clinical rigor, ease-of-use, and affordability to meaningfully lower healthcare costs and raise quality-of-life in Southern California."

The partnership's pilot project will target approximately 10,000 patients in the Ventura, Malibu, and the greater Los Angeles areas of southern California and focus on early identification and intervention for acute health deterioration events. LPF will provide healthcare professionals and patient enrollment services for the project. Vironix Health will provide biometric monitoring devices, AI and machine learning-enabled software, and data analytics capabilities.

Other health systems are also taking advantage of AI and RPM to enhance chronic disease care.

In February, Community Health Systems (CHS) partnered with Cadence to create personalized, real-time treatment responses to improve chronic disease management using AI-enabled RPM.

The partnership initially aims to support patients with hypertension, heart failure, diabetes, and COPD. However, as the partnership grows, Cadence will help expand the health system’s remote care platform to support an increasing number of conditions.