Roche and Medixine launch a new remote patient monitoring service for heart diseases. The service allows patients with heart failure to be treated reliably with the help of remote measurements and automatic monitoring. The solution reduces the number of hospital days, lightens the workload of healthcare personnel, and improves the treatment experience by involving patients in predictive rehabilitation and treatment.
Press release – Espoo, Finland (October 5, 2022)
Heart failure affects 1–2% of the population and as many as one in ten of people aged 70 and over. The treatment and follow-up of the disease demand a lot from both the healthcare system and the patient himself. Especially with an advanced illness, there are repeated situations in the patient’s everyday life where professional advice and help are needed. In the traditional model, this is handled by visits to health centers and hospitals. Certain lifestyle changes and adherence to prescribed drug therapy are important for the success of treatment but are easily left incomplete without support and follow-up.
To ease the growing treatment burden, Roche and Medixine are launching a new remote monitoring service. The service is expected to reduce the healthcare burden, bring significant cost savings and improve the quality of care for heart patients. The remote monitoring service has been designed especially for use by hospitals and wellbeing services counties, and it will be piloted during the rest of the year at TYKS and the South Savo Hospital District.
Safe and high-quality care with remote monitoring
The collaboration between Roche and Medixine was based on the desire to offer the Finnish healthcare field effective, customer-oriented solutions that improve patient well-being and professional satisfaction.
In the new remote monitoring service patients regularly measure, for example, blood pressure and weight from home. The data obtained from them is automatically transferred to professionals for analysis and support in decision-making. The patient can also respond to electronic questionnaires that provide qualitative information for treatment and interventions. If necessary, the patient and the professional can communicate through the platform via secure chat, messages, or video calls.
“Roche always wants to provide a high-quality and safe service to patients and be at the forefront of development. The digital platform for remote monitoring developed by Medixine is a CE-marked medical device1, which is easy to use for both patients and healthcare professionals. Medixine Suite is easily tailored to our needs and also scalable to new disease management,” says Matheus Vieira, CEO of Roche Diagnostics Oy.
At its best, remote monitoring can provide the professional with an overall picture of the patient’s situation. The platform combines information about the patient’s daily activities, laboratory tests, and medication. It can also be integrated with other healthcare systems, increasing the benefits even further.
“The partnership between Roche and Medixine is a great example of cooperation between a large international company and a small Finnish high-tech company. Roche is developing Medixine’s technology using disease-specific modules that lower the threshold for the introduction of new digital solutions,” says Tapio Jokinen, Chairman of the Board of Medixine.
“Our customers have reaped undeniable benefits from remote monitoring in the treatment of chronic diseases. Preventive monitoring and rapid interaction between the professional and the patient reduce unnecessary visits to the hospital or emergency room. Thanks to remote monitoring and automatic data transfer, the professional can focus on those patients who require attention at any given time. This frees up nursing staff’s time from routine work to other tasks,” says Lasse Rousi, CEO of Medixine.
The number of hospital visits was reduced by half in the pilot
The effectiveness of remote monitoring was recently measured in the South Savo Hospital District (Essote) in 2021, where 50 patients participated in a clinical pilot conducted by Roche and Essote. The participants were from a group with the highest risk of exacerbation of the disease.
The results of the pilot show the diverse benefits of remote monitoring:
- The number of hospital visits by heart failure patients decreased by 51 %
- The number of first aid visits decreased by 47 %
- Patients’ experience of customer orientation and cooperation with nursing staff improved during the project
- The value of a depression measurement (PHQ2) in patients decreased from an average of 0.88 to 0.33.
- The total savings in treatment costs (including the start-up cost of the service) were 36 %.
The reduction in hospital days brings significant cost savings at the level of society as a whole, as heart failure is one of the most costly diseases – and up to three-quarters of its treatment costs consist of hospitalization2.
1 Medixine is an ISO 13485 certified company. Medixine Suite 9.0 when used for remote patient monitoring is a CE marked Class IIa medical device (MDR, EU Medical Device Regulation (2017/745))
2Heart failure: Käypä hoito -recommendation, 2017.
Further information and interview requests:
Roche Diagnostics Oy, Matheus Vieira, CEO
matheus.vieira@roche.com
+358 50 305 9002
Medixine Oy, Lasse Rousi, CEO
lasse.rousi@medixine.com
+358 40 184 5793