The federal project began in September 2016 and continues into August 2017. Results of the collaboration will help inform government policy – guiding how industry uses remotely-collected patient health data.
As part of the project, Sutter Health supplied participating patients the Mpower (Motivating Patients Online with Enhanced Resources) smartphone application, which provides a secure connection to various monitoring devices via Validic’s digital health platform.
The system interprets information, providing feedback to patients to help them manage their disease as well as alerting care providers if needed.
The Mpower program also uses Validic's VitalSnap, which allows patients share information with care providers from analog in-home medical devices.
According to a recent survey, published by Validic, more than 60% of respondents have used digital health technologies in clinical trials, and more than 97% plan to use such tools more over the next five years.
Additionally, more than two thirds of respondents said the most important outcome for drug developers using digital health technology is improved medication adherence.
“Sutter Health is fundamentally interested in innovations that improve the care and outcomes of our patients,” Dr. Martin Entwistle, Executive Director, Personal Healthcare Programs, Sutter Health, told Outsourcing-Pharma.com.
“Patient-generated health data, which is data collected from the patient as they go about their day-to-day lives, offers significant opportunities to help in this process by keeping them on-track with their personal health goals and enabling their physician and care team to provide the right level of support, when it is required,” he added.
Sutter Health is set to recruit more patients to the project to further validate the model. If successful, Entwistle said the program may become more widely available in 2017.