By Annie Beauchemin
This year, 100,000 Canadians will be diagnosed with heart failure.[i] If you’re one of the 750,000 people already living with heart failure, you know how worrying it can be for you and your family and caregivers.[ii] The shortness of breath, even when lying down.[iii] The weakness and fatigue.[iv] The inability to carry out simple activities such as walking or climbing stairs.[v]
Access to medical facilities and cardiac specialists who can provide expert care is critical. While living in a big city may provide some people access to specialized care, it isn’t necessarily accessible to everyone who needs it when they need it. Access can also be challenging for people living in smaller communities, where it may not be readily available.
Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd. (Boehringer Ingelheim Canada) is honoured to partner with the digital innovators at University Health Network (UHN), a world leader in heart failure care, who have developed research-based solutions that address the inequalities in access to care and deliver the benefits of specialized heart failure management at home, at any time, wherever home may be.
Medly is a remote management program that uses technology to address challenges in caring for people with complex health issues.[vi] Developed at UHN by an interdisciplinary team of clinicians, researchers and engineers, it transforms the way clinicians and patients manage heart failure and improve the experiences and outcomes for patients.[vii] In operation since 2016, it is already having significant positive impact on patients in and around Toronto and some remote northern communities.[viii] Now it’s time to support scaling it up to benefit heart failure patients and their families across Ontario.
It’s estimated that heart failure touches the lives of one in three Canadians, either because they have the disease or because it affects a family member or close friend.[ix] Heart failure is also one of the leading reasons people are admitted – and readmitted – to hospital, costing Ontario hospitals nearly a quarter of a billion dollars annually.[x] According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the annual healthcare costs associated with heart failure in Canada could reach $2.8 billion by 2030.[xi]
In looking at these numbers, we know how necessary innovations like Medly are: for patients, for care providers, and for our health system overall. Our health systems are also under enormous non-financial pressure: from COVID-19 backlogs, surges in respiratory illness, and with burn-out among healthcare workers. We have a duty, as members of the health sector and health system, to provide options that can ease this pressure.
Public-private partnerships like the one between Boehringer Ingelheim Canada and UHN allow for innovation in patient care, without sacrificing quality. In the case of Medly, our partnership is helping to expand access to a tool that improves the care patients receive while also improving professional satisfaction for the care providers that use it.
The Medly Program provides more patients with care while keeping as many as possible out of hospital. It has a proven track record backed by peer-reviewed research, which shows it cut the number of heart-failure related hospitalizations by 50 per cent and reduced hospitalizations from all causes by 24 per cent.[xii] The Medly Program uses a high clinician-to-patient ratio (one Medly nurse can support up to 250 patients), and its streamlined data systems mean lower costs, lower stress, and better outcomes.[xiii]
With healthcare budgets and hospital staff under increased strain, we need public-private partnerships to support and help fund innovative healthcare solutions. UHN is already a world leader in care, education, and research. By working together with Boehringer Ingelheim Canada, an innovative healthcare solutions partner that supports public healthcare objectives for heart failure care and beyond, UHN is able to expand access to Medly and enable healthcare teams to better support as many patients as possible.
The Boehringer Ingelheim Canada-UHN partnership reduces risk for the public healthcare sector by absorbing costs and testing success. It includes financial and in-kind resources and medical expertise from both the public and private sectors to create sustainable and transformative healthcare solutions. The pragmatic and collaborative mindset of our partnership supports strategies tailored to meet local healthcare needs, deliver solutions designed to advance clinical priorities and enhance patient care.
Access to Medly is a lifeline to heart failure expertise and ongoing management, particularly for patients who don’t have access to a cardiologist or family physician. Our combined goal now is to scale up the use of Medly as a digital therapeutic to deliver equitable access to quality heart failure care in communities across Ontario and throughout Canada.
At Boehringer Ingelheim Canada, we’re committed to identifying and deploying innovative technologies and health system processes in public healthcare. By leveraging digital healthcare solutions, and through public-private partnerships like the one with UHN, we can increase access to care for all patients no matter where they live and help address health inequities by bridging healthcare gaps.
Annie Beauchemin is Executive Director, Patient Access and Healthcare Solutions for Boehringer Ingelheim (Canada) Ltd.
[i] Heart&Stroke. Heart failure in Canada: complex, incurable and on the rise. Available at : https://www.heartandstroke.ca/what-we-do/media-centre/news-releases/heart-failure-in-canada-complex-incurable-and-on-the-rise [Accessed December 2022].
[ii] Heart&Stroke. Heart failure in Canada: complex, incurable and on the rise. Available at: https://www.heartandstroke.ca/what-we-do/media-centre/news-releases/heart-failure-in-canada-complex-incurable-and-on-the-rise [Accessed December 2022].
[iii] Heart&Stroke. Heart failure in Canada: complex, incurable and on the rise. Available at: https://www.heartandstroke.ca/what-we-do/media-centre/news-releases/heart-failure-in-canada-complex-incurable-and-on-the-rise [Accessed December 2022].
[iv] Heart&Stroke. Heart failure in Canada: complex, incurable and on the rise. Available at: https://www.heartandstroke.ca/what-we-do/media-centre/news-releases/heart-failure-in-canada-complex-incurable-and-on-the-rise [Accessed December 2022].
[v] Heart&Stroke. Heart failure in Canada: complex, incurable and on the rise. Available at: https://www.heartandstroke.ca/what-we-do/media-centre/news-releases/heart-failure-in-canada-complex-incurable-and-on-the-rise [Accessed December 2022].
[vi] Medly. Program Overview. Available at: https://medly.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/5.10-Medly-Program-Overview-v3.0.pdf [Accessed December 2022].
[vii] Medly. Case Study: Peter Munk Cardiac Centre. Available at: https://medly.ca/about/casestudies/ [Accessed December 2022].
[viii] Medly. Case Study: Peter Munk Cardiac Centre. Available at: https://medly.ca/about/casestudies/ [Accessed December 2022].
[ix] Heart&Stroke. Heart failure in Canada: complex, incurable and on the rise. Available at: https://www.heartandstroke.ca/what-we-do/media-centre/news-releases/heart-failure-in-canada-complex-incurable-and-on-the-rise [Accessed December 2022].
[x] Heart&Stroke. Heart failure in Canada: complex, incurable and on the rise. Available at: https://www.heartandstroke.ca/what-we-do/media-centre/news-releases/heart-failure-in-canada-complex-incurable-and-on-the-rise [Accessed December 2022].
[xi] Heart&Stroke. Heart failure in Canada: complex, incurable and on the rise. Available at: https://www.heartandstroke.ca/what-we-do/media-centre/news-releases/heart-failure-in-canada-complex-incurable-and-on-the-rise [Accessed December 2022]
[xii] Medly. Case Study: Peter Munk Cardiac Centre. Available at: https://medly.ca/about/casestudies/ [Accessed December 2022]
[xiii] Medly. Program Overview. Available at: https://medly.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/5.10-Medly-Program-Overview-v3.0.pdf [Accessed December 2022]