AstraZeneca Eyes Medical Devices for Chronic Disease Management

AstraZeneca and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) recently entered into a collaboration to create digital health solutions for chronic disease management. 

The collaboration will leverage robust data and clinical best practices to address today’s most crucial healthcare challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The companies will focus on creating patient-centered digital health solutions and establishing a new standard of care for chronic illness management outside of a clinical setting. 

MGH will utilize AstraZeneca’s new AMAZE disease management platform in studies for heart failure and asthma management. 

The first two studies will leverage AMAZE in real-world settings with the goal to improve patient engagement, care-team communication, and clinical outcomes, all while reducing overall healthcare costs.

“We believe the AMAZE disease management platform has the potential to transform the current healthcare delivery paradigm for patients around the world living with chronic diseases. We are incredibly proud to be working closely with Massachusetts General Hospital to utilize this digital platform to close gaps in patient care, ultimately leading to better outcomes,” Ruud Dobber, PhD, executive vice president of the biopharmaceuticals business unit at AstraZeneca said in the announcement. 

AMAZE identifies at-risk patients and delivers insights to the clinical care team at the point of care through remote patient monitoring. Overall, the platform improves the management of complex patient populations.

The platform, which includes a patient app and clinician dashboard, is intended to speed up evidence-based clinical practice. The technology will continue to improve the standard of patient care and healthcare efficiency. 

“This extraordinary level of collaboration between an academic medical center and a pharmaceutical company, opens a pathway to innovative digital health solutions that place the patient at the center of care,” said Peter L. Slavin, MD, president of MGH. 

“By embracing the tension of different perspectives and expertise, we can move faster and more efficiently while maintaining the highest levels of scientific rigor and clinical excellence. We hope this alliance will serve as a model for future collaboration between pharma and healthcare providers,” Slavin continued. 

AstraZeneca and MGH expect to expand the use of AMAZE across multiple chronic diseases and reach patients throughout the Mass General Brigham system and beyond. 

Chronic conditions are most common among Medicare beneficiaries. Therefore, this population has been most impacted over the past year. In the first 11 months of 2020, over 1.9 million Medicare beneficiaries were infected with COVID-19 and more than 490,000 were hospitalized.

About 45.4 percent of adults might have a higher risk for COVID-19 complications because of chronic condition

A March 2021 Commonwealth Fund study found that chronic disease management became even more complicated once the pandemic took off across the country.   

In the study, researchers found that among the Medicare population that was hospitalized due to COVID-19 last year, 80 percent of patients experienced hypertension and 51 percent had chronic kidney disease. 

Additionally, 50 percent of beneficiaries had diabetes, while others had Ischemic heart disease, Alzheimer’s dementia, heart failure, and COPD. 

Researchers identified a few issues that COVID-19 caused for chronic disease management, such as lack of access to medications, interruption of regular clinical checkups, and social determinants of health.

Therefore, experts believe that the COVID-19 pandemic should change providers chronic disease outreach.

Firstly, providers should reconsider who their “high priority” patients are. These patients include those who live in highest- risk and cost areas, patients with behavioral health needs, and patients who aren’t showing up to their check-ins.

Second, experts said that care providers should provide ongoing support for chronic disease management, such as telehealth support.