Medtronic and Mpirik are collaborating on a new pilot program focused on improving care for patients at risk of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA).
The two companies hope to address disparities in care for SCA by making therapies such as implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and cardiac resynchronization therapy-defibrillators (CRT-Ds) available to all patients who need them; as thing stand now, they said, white men consistently have better access to these therapies than other patient groups.
The pilot program will use Mpirik’s AI capabilities to screen the electronic health records of five different hospitals and identify high-risk patients, “regardless of race or gender,” who may benefit from additional care. Vizient is also participating, giving Medtronic and Mpirik access to its advanced data and analytics.
“This pilot program offers an innovative and scalable method to use real-world clinical data—and more sophisticated approaches than traditional manual chart reviews—enabling earlier, appropriate care for at-risk patients, while also improving quality and reducing potential disparities,” Kweli P. Thompson, MD, MPH, general manager of defibrillation solutions within Medtronic’s cardiac rhythm management business, said in a prepared statement. “This exciting technology provides the ability to improve care pathways, digitize population health management and collect a robust set of data to leverage for publications.”
“Collaborating with both Medtronic and Vizient in this pilot offers at-risk patients a best-of-breed program for improving outcomes through timely referral,” added Logan Brigman, Mpirik’s CEO. “Ensuring adherence to a care pathway, assessing personalized disease progression and screening potential cardiac disease, without differentiation for gender or race, are complex issues that our machine learning and natural language processing help to solve.”
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.