CTA, ACC Partner on mHealth, Telehealth Standards in Cardiovascular Care

The American College of Cardiology is partnering with the Consumer Technology Association to help providers get a handle on the fast-growing field of mHealth and telehealth devices for cardiovascular health.

The project, which will include representatives from Philips, Samsung, Abbott, BioIntellisense, HP, Valencell, Well Being Digital and Omron, takes aim at innovators and researchers who are developing wearables, devices and platforms designed to monitor and manage someone’s heart health. They’ll be developing best practices and use cases for connected health products that aid in prevention, screening/diagnosis and health management or treatment.

“The digital health care market is growing rapidly, and clinicians need to be confident in the appropriateness of devices for different patient groups,” Ritu Thamman, MD, FASC, FACC, a cardiologist and clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine who will co-chair the new collaboration, said in a press release. “By providing best practices for new apps and devices, clinicians and patients can be assured that they are using the most appropriate digital tools to enhance care options and potentially improve patient outcomes.” 

The project builds off of a document created by the CTA and Heart Rhythm Society and unveiled during CES 2020 in Las Vegas that helps consumers understand the vast array of products they can buy to track cardiovascular health.

While that report was directed at who’s using the technology, this effort will focus on who’s building the technology and who’s using the data coming from those devices to make healthcare decisions.

“Health tech devices are an extension of clinicians’ practice, so when you’re unable to see a doctor or experience symptoms the device can step in and report the information to your provider,” Rene Quashie, vice president of digital health for the CTA said in the press release issued this morning. “Frameworks like ours will help clinicians make an informed recommendation to their patients with the goal of providing holistic care and, ultimately, better outcomes for patients.” 

Alongside diabetes care, cardiovascular care is among the fastest growing segments of the mHealth and telehealth industry, with a wide range of smartwatches, patches, tattoos, mHealth apps, telehealth platforms and even sensor-embedded clothing, jewelry and glasses designed to discreetly monitor one’s heart. Some are marketed to allow consumers to track their own health, while others are designed to allow healthcare providers to monitor their patients throughout the day.

These technologies aren’t always accurate or reliable, however, particularly on the consumer side. And patient engagement can be an issue as well. So it’s important to create standards that let providers and clinicians know what can and can’t be done with the devices.

“Widespread use of these technologies is not without its challenges,” CTA executives said when the consumer-facing report was unveiled in 2020. “For some individuals, access to this technology is not a given. Some wearables can be expensive, and almost all rely on access to smartphones and/or internet connectivity. For clinicians and health systems, managing and interpreting large volumes of continuous monitoring data from wearables presents an enormous challenge. To make most effective use of these data, it will need to be integrated into clinicians’ workflow. This is an important step in overcoming obstacles related to the storage, privacy and security of data.”