Cardihab helps Medibank tackle cardiac mortality

Cardihab is proud to support Medibank in a trial aiming to improve access to cardiac rehabilitation and prevent cardiac patients from experiencing a second serious event.

SmartCR, Cardihab’s digital cardiac rehabilitation app, will be provided to patients who participate in the Medibank Heart Health at Home trial.  By providing phone-based counselling in combination with SmartCR, the Heart Health at Home trial will allow trial participants to access cardiac rehabilitation from the comfort and convenience of their home rather than a hospital setting.

CEO of
Cardihab, Helen Souris, said involvement in the Medibank trial was an important
milestone toward meeting the company’s vision of helping patients reach
optimal health when at risk of, or living with, heart disease. “Receiving timely access to cardiac
rehabilitation services is a significant challenge for people who have
experienced an acute cardiac event,” Helen said. “We are proud to be supporting
Medibank in their endeavours to make a difference on such an important aspect
of cardiac care.” The Medibank Heart Health at Home trial for customers
will include: • Clinical
care coordinators (such as a cardiac nurse or physiotherapist) to provide one
to one support through weekly telephone consultations. • Access to
the Cardihab smart phone app to provide health and exercise monitoring,
motivational and educational materials, and medication management tools. • Exercise
targets based on recommended activity post cardiac procedure. Cardiovascular disease remains Australia’s largest
killer, accounting for 44,000 deaths in 2017 and 1.1 million hospitalisations a
year. It is expected to cost Australia $22 billion by 2032-33.[i] People have already experienced a serious event, such
as an acute heart attack, are at higher risk of suffering another serious event,
with a Canadian study showing 61.7% were readmitted within a year.[ii] Cardiac rehabilitation, a medically supervised exercise and information program for people who
have had heart surgery or a serious heart event, has been shown to achieve a
26% reduction in mortality and an 18% reduction in readmissions, as well as
quality of life benefits.[iii] Despite
this, less than 30% of eligible patients participate.[iv] In a clinical
trial, Cardihab’s digital cardiac rehabilitation solution, which allows users
to participate in a program in the comfort of their own home, demonstrated
significantly higher rates vs traditional hospital-based cardiac rehab of:

• uptake (80% vs
  62%),
• adherence (94% vs
  68%) and
• completion (80%
  vs 47%)[v]

In addition, the
home-based program was as effective in improving physiological and
psychological health outcomes as traditional cardiac rehabilitation.

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[i] Australian Bureau of
Statistics 2018, Causes of Death 2017, ABS cat. no. 3303.0. [ii] Southern DA, Ngo J, Martin
BJ, Galbraith PD, Knudtson ML, Ghali WA, James MT and Wilton SB. Characterizing
types of readmission after acute coronary syndrome hospitalization:
implications for quality reporting. J Am Heart Assoc 2014;3:e001046 [iii] Anderson L, et al. Exercise - Based Cardiac
Rehabilitation for Coronary Heart Disease: Cochrane Systematic Review and Meta
- Analysis. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2016 Jan 5; 67(1):1 - 12.
dol:10.1016/j.jacc.2015.10.044 [v] Varnfield
M, Karunanithi M, Lee C-K, et al. Heart 2014;100:1770–1779. [iv] Clark RA,
Conway A, Poulsen V, et al. Alternative models of cardiac rehabilitation: a
systematic review. Eur J Prev Cardiol 2013; 0 (00), 1 - 40