At ChristianaCare, Black patients are receiving stronger outcomes than national averages for hypertension and heart failure care.
The U.S. Black population is 12.4%, and at ChristianaCare, 32% of the heart failure patient population is Black — a race that has historically experienced healthcare disparities for heart failure treatment, including low adherence to guideline-directed medical therapy.
To counteract rates of substandard care, ChristianaCare locked arms with health technology company Story Health, the Newark, Del.-based system said in a Feb. 23 news release.
With Story Health, the system launched a digital platform that offers a health coach who helps with medication adherence, coordinates lab work and aids patients with transportation and prescription assistance.
Here are the collaboration's results:
- Six times improvement on target doses of beta blockers (76%)
- Seven times improvement on target doses of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers and angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitors (54%)
- Two times improvement on target doses of mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (57%)
- Increase in sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor adherence, rising from a 32% baseline to 74%
- Decrease in average absolute systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels after 120 days