Smartphone app decreases risk for readmission after acute MI

SANTA ANA PUEBLO, N.M. — Patients admitted to the hospital for acute MI who used a platform with a cardiology smartphone application, Corrie, had decreased risk for 30-day readmission, according to a poster presented at the American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress on CVD.

“One of the innovative features about Corrie is that it takes a comprehensive approach to cardiac recovery, whereas a lot of other interventions just focus on one area such as medication adherence, vitals or education,” Erin M. Spaulding, RN, BSN, PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, told Cardiology Today. “This app gets patients to participate in their own care starting in the hospital, by empowering patients to manage their medications, learn about their disease through educational articles and videos, connect with their providers, and track their physical activity, heart rate and blood pressure using the Apple Watch and iHealth wireless blood pressure cuff.”

For the MiCORE study, researchers analyzed interim data from patients who were admitted to one of two academic hospitals with acute MI, defined as STEMI or type I non-STEMI. Patients who owned a smartphone received access to the Corrie Health platform (n = 110; mean age, 58 years; 73% men), which consists of the CareKit smartphone application that can pair with an Apple Watch and a Bluetooth-enabled iHealth BP cuff.

The control group (n = 1,382; mean age, 64 years; 59% men) consisted of patients who were also admitted for acute MI from July 2015 to June 2017 and did not receive access to the platform.

Within 30 days, 5% of patients who received the platform were readmitted vs. 18% of the control group. After adjusting for key baseline characteristics, the platform group had 69% lower odds of 30-day readmission compared with the control group (OR = 0.31; 95% CI, 0.13-0.72).

“In the future, one of the things we want to look at is to see whether we can leverage the patient’s social network to help patients become more adherent to their care plan and to see if this will have an additive effect on preventing readmissions. Other future directions include expanding this model to heart failure patients and implementing a risk prediction algorithm,” Spaulding said in an interview. – by Darlene Dobkowski

Reference:

Spaulding EM, et al. Poster #109. Presented at: American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress on CVD; July 27-29, 2018; Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico.

Disclosures: The study received material support from Apple and iHealth. Spaulding reports no relevant financial disclosures. Three other authors report they are co-founders of and hold equity in Corrie Health, an entity which intends to further develop the app.