Novartis has partnered with Monash University and Monash Health for a project targeting cardiovascular disease.
The partnership will initially focus on digital health infrastructure. It will facilitate grant funding for the creation of the Coronary Heart Disease and Heart Failure analytics-driven ‘Living Lab’.
It will leverage clinical data to create tools, including visual dashboards, to aid in identifying opportunities in care and risk management. This will support clinicians in making real-time decisions regarding lipid (cholesterol) management and heart failure.
Program director of Monash Health’s Victorian Heart Hospital and director of Monash University’s Victorian Heart Institute, Professor Stephen Nicholls, says that while patients live longer, managing heart conditions is becoming more complex and costly.
“Despite having more therapies available, almost half of the patients who have had a cardiovascular event aren’t reaching their cholesterol targets, and heart failure remains the second highest cause for unplanned hospital readmission in Victoria. The reasons for this are often nuanced,” he said.
“There’s a significant opportunity to improve patient outcomes if we develop the tools to unlock the insights a data-driven approach to care can provide”, said Professor Derek Chew, service director of Monash Health’s Victorian Heart Hospital and director of Health Informatics Research at Monash University’s Victorian Heart Institute.
“At the core of our partnership is the power of real-world clinical level data. Utilising this effectively at a variety of clinical touch points – general practice vs emergency departments and general medicine in-patient units – is key to enhancing optimal management of patients.”
“It’s exciting that through innovative partnerships we can make complex information more accessible and readily translatable into action,” he said.
“This initiative may not only help save lives but also has the potential to reduce burden heart disease has on our communities and healthcare costs. This may be a pilot in Victoria, but it has scope to be rolled out nation-wide,” added Professor Nicholls.
Novartis country president Matt Zeller said, “As we tackle the burden of Cardiovascular Disease, we must work together to advance research, innovate using data and analytics, and build new models of clinical decision making and patient care.
“We are proud to be collaborating with Monash University and Monash Health. Their unique model of care and pursuit of the use of advanced analytics will hopefully create real-time feedback loops that can give us better visibility not just of the burden of CVD but also what solutions are, and are not, working for patients.
“We hope that by working together with all stakeholders across the ecosystem we can help to advance tangible improvements for Australian patients now and in the future,” said Zeller.
