CORTEX-eCARE: a high-value care approach for patients with congenital heart disease

Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) patients usually require more healthcare resources per patient compared to other diseases. E.g., CHD hospitalization represents 23% of global healthcare resources and accounts for only 4% of hospitalizations, and the corresponding healthcare costs in the USA surpassed $5.6 B$/year in 2014 (no such analysis has been done in EU). To address this, in 2020 Barcelona Children’s Hospital Sant Joan de Déu (HSJD) developed the CORTEX “traffic-light”, a CHD patient stratification algorithm fed by patient data, which has decreased ICU and hospital length of stay by 5% and 22% respectively in 6 months, yielding hospital operating costs reduction of ~ 138 k€.

CORTEX-eCARE project’s main goal is to demonstrate and gather evidence to replicate a VBHC delivery model, which will be based on the CORTEX “traffic-light”. CORTEX-eCARE is thought to be implemented in HSJD and in Helsinki University Hospital-HUS for 2 years, which will allow to: A) Establish new patient/family centred outcome metrics; B) Improve patient experience and Quality of Life; and C) Reduce healthcare system costs.

CORTEX-eCARE is a collaborative project, coordinated by HSJD and counting with the participation of HUS, the respective Payors (Catsalut and HUS), CHD Patient Associations (Catalan Association for Congenital Cardiopathies and Finish Association for Heart Children and Adults), TRC as technology integrator, Medtronic as technological consultant, University of Barcelona for socio-economic analysis and Institut Borja de Bioètica for Ethics analysis.

CORTEX-eCARE was submitted to EIT Health BP2022 Innovation call being scored as high-quality project proposal in a highly competitive evaluation process and recognized for Innovative ideas worthy for Investment by a panel for independent international experts and EIT Health.

 Authors: Arnau Valls, Leonor Norton and Joan Sanchez de Toledo

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