The Department of Veterans Affairs is partnering with Evidation to allow veterans to enroll in a program that helps them monitor their heart health through a smartphone or wearable.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is launching a new program aimed at helping veterans manage their heart health through their smartphones and wearables.
The VA and the Veterans Health Administration Innovation Ecosystem (VHAIE) are partnering with California-based digital health company Evidation to enroll veterans in Heart Health on Evidation, a program co-developed with the American College of Cardiology in 2020. The program will be open to veterans regardless of whether they are living with heart disease.
“Veterans who join Heart Health can track and understand their heart health and chronic conditions outside of the doctor’s office from anywhere,” Arash Harzand, MD, a VHAIE senior innovation fellow, said in a press release. “Daily activity, sleep and mood can have a serious impact on heart health and this program gives Veterans an opportunity to measure and engage with these important personal health metrics.”
The program is one of many to use mHealth technology to expand opportunities for consumers and providers to track and manage chronic conditions outside the hospital, clinic or doctor’s office. The program is accessible through an mHealth app (it’s available via iOS and Android) on a smartphone, and participants can also connect through devices such as a smartwatch.
Programs like that offered by Evidation allow consumers to track relevant data, including activity, weight, diet, moods and symptoms, and access resources on cardiac health and wellness. Users can also get personalized reports that chart their health data over time and share that information with their care providers.
Some programs also partner with healthcare providers as a precursor to remote patient monitoring services, in which providers track patient health on devices over time and use that data to create a care management plan.
Eric Wicklund is the associate content manager and senior editor for Innovation, Technology, and Pharma for HealthLeaders.