The Rocky Mountain area’s largest health system has cut a deal to bring a specialty care platform to heart failure patients managing their condition outside of the doctor’s office.
Announced Thursday morning, the deal will see Intermountain clinicians and coaches from startup Story Health work in tandem to better tailor patients’ heart and vascular care treatment plans using the latter’s electronic health record-enabled technology.
Additionally, the implementation will have Story’s coaches keep in touch with patients over email, texts or voice calls, according to the announcement. The coaches can answer questions from patients, remind them to stick to their medications and oversee any regimen adjustments between visits.
“The Intermountain Heart and Vascular team continuously evaluate innovative ways to enhance the value of care we deliver,” Sheralee Petersen, executive clinical director of the Intermountain Heart and Vascular Program, said in the announcement. “This collaboration with Story Health is an excellent example, offering a new approach to engaging and empowering patients. Together we aim to reduce heart failure mortality and readmissions while improving quality of life through evidence-based care.”
The partnership officially kicked off earlier this month, according to a representative. The organizations are expecting to publish the results of their collaboration in white papers before the end of the year.
Cupertino, California-based Story Health is led by ex-Verily executives, employs more than 30 people and early last year closed a $22.6 million series A funding round.
Alongside virtual coaching, the collaborative platform incorporates connected biometric monitors and an insight engine that alerts care teams when a patient’s condition is changing or in need of an early intervention. The startup’s offerings include heart failure home titration, heart failure volume management, heart failure advanced therapy evaluation and refractory hypertension home optimization.
“Patients have long journeys with their health, and a significant part of that journey takes place after they leave the clinician’s office,” said Tom Stanis, CEO and co-founder of Story Health and also co-founder of Verily, in the announcement. “Our solution combines the latest AI-integrated electronic health record technology with real health coaches to directly identify and address the most disruptive barriers to a disconnected patient journey.”
Headquartered in Utah, Intermountain is a nonprofit system with 33 hospitals and 385 clinics. Of those, nine hospitals and 23 clinics are operated in rural communities where in-person care may be inconvenient for residents—a potential opportunity for Story’s at-home services.
Though a representative told Fierce Healthcare that the startup has multiple “significant partnerships underway,” the deal with Intermountain represents Story’s second big-name provider collaboration. The company teamed up with Delaware-based ChristianaCare in 2021 to implement its heart failure program.
The company has since presented positive clinical results from that deployment. Specifically, among 90 patients with significant heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, ChristianaCare’s team saw a sixfold increase in the percentage of patients adhering to optimal guideline-directed medical therapy dosing after being enrolled for 90 days.
“It’s really been transformational for many patients. We see every day how much better our patients are doing," said Sourin Banerji, M.D., medical director of advanced heart failure at ChristianaCare, in an October release from the startup sharing the results. “The platform is a synergy of technology, health coach support, and physician care and addresses gaps that impact patients between clinical visits This has accelerated optimization of patient care and is a true working model for future healthcare delivery.”