Sutter Shares NIH Heart Failure Grant

Sacramento-based hospital operator Sutter Health has received a portion of a $2 million joint grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop new data analytics to help detect heart failure much earlier than current diagnostic techniques permit.

Sutter will work with Geisinger Health System and IBM Research to develop the diagnostic techniques, using a combination of analytics and electronic health records of Sutter and Geisinger patients.

Geisinger officials indicated that symptoms indicating heart failure are often found in patients years before an actual diagnosis is made, and that a better predictive model could be developed through intensive data analysis.

Heart failure is the leading cause of hospitalization in the U.S. among individuals over the age of 65. The number of diagnosed cases is expected to double by 2030. 

Current costs to treat heart failure are more than $34 billion annually.

"Sophisticated analysis of EHR data could reveal the unique presentation of these symptoms at earlier stages and allow doctors and patients to work together sooner to do something about it,” said Walter Stewart, Sutter Health's chief research and development officer and principal investigator for the project. “Through this research we could transform how heart failure is managed in the future."