August 22, 2024- Intermountain Health, one of the nation’s premier not-for-profit health systems, today announced an expanded relationship with Story Health, a digital health company transforming specialty care delivery, that will increase patient access to Intermountain’s nationally-recognized cardiology care across the health system.
The expansion follows a highly successful pilot program launched by Intermountain and Story Health in January 2023 for patients with a new heart failure diagnosis.
Heart failure is an increasingly prevalent and costly that is expected to grow by more than 25% by 2030, with a price tag that is expected to eclipse the $30 billion mark.
While there are enormous challenges, clear evidence demonstrates that the management of medical therapies for this population can significantly reduce morbidity, reduce hospitalizations, and improve quality of life.
Specifically, getting patients on optimized medication, known as guideline directed medical therapy (GDMT), has been shown to increase life expectancy of heart failure patients up to five years and can reduce hospitalizations by more than 70 percent.
Using Story Health’s program, which utilizes a virtual and asynchronous care model, Intermountain Health patients enrolled in the pilot program experienced a significant clinical improvement, including an increase in achieving medication optimization (GDMT) – with 80% of those medication changes handled without a clinic visit.