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Healing Veteran Hearts with Virtual Home-Based Cardiac Rehabilitation (Smart HEART)

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Smart HEART (Health Education and Rehab Technology) Virtual Home-Based Cardiac Rehabilitation helps some of the most vulnerable at-risk veterans who have had hospitalizations for heart disease. We use connected technology such as fitness trackers and a smartphone app to remotely connect veterans at home with their VA cardiology team. We use a sophisticated dashboard system with programmed alerts to improve the efficiency of patient care and prevent adverse outcomes.

This innovation is replicating across multiple facilities as its impact continues to be validated. See more replicating innovations.

Adoptions:

5 successful

Awards and Recognition:

iNet Spark Award Investee, iNET Spread Investee

Partners:

Diffusion of Excellence, Office of Rural Health, VHA Innovators Network

Tags:

Access to Care Cardiology Continuity of Care Coordinated Care COVID-19 Employee Experience Health Equity High Reliability Medication Management Moving Forward
Contact Team

Overview

Problem

Cardiac rehabilitation is a life-saving cardiovascular risk reduction program that is utilized by less than 10% of eligible veterans who are some of the highest risk. Barriers include veteran disability and lack of resources to attend the traditional program, which consists of attending 36 on-site exercise sessions over 12 weeks. They may also be exposed to ... See more

Solution

Smart HEART (Health Education and Rehab Technology) virtual cardiac rehabilitation is a technology-based implementation toolkit that rapidly enables medical centers to start a new telehealth-based cardiac rehabilitation program to increase access to care and veteran participation.

Links

Results

Smart HEART allows your facility to offer cardiac rehabilitation to a larger number of veterans that are unable to attend in-person rehab, allowing it to improve in key hospital performance metrics such as enrolling patients in cardiac rehabilitation within 21 days. The comprehensive lifestyle change programming has been found to increase functional capacity ... See more

Links

Metrics

  • 2x the number of veterans served
  • 50% of the cost of traditional cardiac rehabilitation in the community
  • 9 mg/dL reduction in LDL cholesterol
  • 36% reduction in smoking of active smokers in the program
  • 1.5 point reduced PHQ-9 score for depressive symptoms
  • 10% increase in functional capacity with 6 minute walk test
  • 5 point increased cardiac self-efficacy
  • 95% veteran satisfaction reported

Diffusion tracker

Does not include Clinical Resource Hubs (CRH)

Statuses

CA: Palo Alto VA Medical Center (Palo Alto, California)
  • Started adoption on 07/2018, ended on 12/2018.
CA: San Francisco VA Medical Center (San Francisco)
  • Started adoption on 11/2018, ended on 06/2019.
FL: Malcom Randall Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Gainesville)
  • Started adoption on 09/2018, ended on 01/2020.
GA: Joseph Maxwell Cleland Atlanta VA Medical Center (Atlanta, Georgia)
  • Started adoption on 05/2016.
OH: Cincinnati VA Medical Center (Cincinnati, Ohio)
  • Started adoption on 07/2018, ended on 02/2020.

There are no in-progress adoptions for this innovation.

There are no unsuccessful adoptions for this innovation.

Multimedia

Images

Enrollment visit with participant with Smart HEART kit that includes the smartphone app, connected BP monitor/scale, education booklet, as well as wristband wearable.

Implementation

Timeline

  • 2 months
    Apply for SaaS request to engage with Project Special Forces to procure the technology. Then engage with Moving Analytics for customized quote and purchase.
  • 2 months
    Train clinical team with Moving Analytics to acquire skills for coaching and technology management

Departments

  • Cardiology
  • Logistics

Core Resources

Resource type Resource description
PEOPLE
  • Medical director required for 4 hours per week
  • Care coordinator required for 8 hours per week
PROCESSES
  • The facility would need to train a provider to offer the lifestyle coaching and clinician to oversee the referral process. The vendor would provide the clinical training, supplies, and subscription.

Support Resources

Resource type Resource description
PEOPLE
  • Program coordinator to help initiate and execute rogram
PROCESSES
  • We would offer consulting to another facility on how to structure the program from within the VA and how to best procure resources from the vendor

Files

  • Order form that may be used by the facility to order the program from the Vendor; typically can be a purchase made through the logistics department Price List and Order Form

Contact

Comment

Comments and replies are disabled for retired innovations and non-VA users.

Email

Email with questions about this innovation.

About

Origin story

Our program started in 2016 with the support of the VA Innovation network to do a pilot at our medical center, where many veterans were dealing with excessive delays in receive cardiac rehabilitation care. Smart HEART filled an important gap and showed tremendous success, quickly spreading to additional sites with additional VA Innovation support. The progra ... Our program started in 2016 with the support of the VA Innovation network to do a pilot at our medical center, where many veterans were dealing with excessive delays in receive cardiac rehabilitation care. Smart HEART filled an important gap and showed tremendous success, quickly spreading to additional sites with additional VA Innovation support. The program has now matured over time and is ready for diffusion at other medical centers seeking to improve their preventive cardiology service and modernize their care.

Original team

Amit Shah

Director, Chief of Preventive Cardiology

Arash Harzand

Digital Preventive Cardiology, Senior Innovation Fellow

Harsh Vagsantham

CEO and co-founder, Moving Analytics

Ade Adesanya

President and co-founder, Moving Analytics

Search tags

Access to Care Cardiology Continuity of Care Coordinated Care COVID-19 Employee Experience Health Equity High Reliability Medication Management Moving Forward