Miami Miller School receives grant to study impact of GenerationOne's mobile solution on heart failure patients

Oct 29 2010

The James and Esther King Biomedical Research Program has awarded the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Geriatrics Institute a $100,000 grant for a year-long study on the impact of GenerationOne's Mobile Heath Solution on heart failure patients.

"We are honored that this esteemed team of physicians and experts in telemedicine have chosen GenerationOne to tackle this debilitating disease," said Jeffrey Wolf, GenerationOne CEO. "This prestigious grant underscores the potential of mobile health care to powerfully improve the well-being of so many Americans."

Heart failure affects five million Americans at a cost of $35 billion annually. If caught early, symptoms that augur health crises for this population, such as sudden weight gain and swelling, do not necessarily lead to dire and costly emergency care. Patient nonadherence with drug and dietary regimens is common and also perilous for this group.

GenerationOne is designed to overcome these challenges and others. The company offers round-the-clock automated tracking, with real-time collection and instantaneous analysis of health data via regular cell phones. Clinicians and caretakers are notified at the first sign of trouble and can intervene quickly and efficiently. GenerationOne patients, receiving regular reminders and inputting information, tend to comply better with prescribed therapies and make superior lifestyle choices.

"One of the big agendas for President Obama was a better way to deliver medical care and make it more efficient," said co-investigator Herman S. Cheung, PhD, James L. Knight Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the College of Engineering at the University of Miami and a VA Research Career Scientist. "This grant supports our work, which takes that approach and addresses those issues."

The study will be administered by Miller School of Medicine in conjunction with the Miami Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and participants will be recruited from both inpatients and clinic patients at several University of Miami Miller School of Medicine primary care and heart failure clinical sites.

The two-arm, randomized, controlled study is scheduled to begin in January and will include about 60 patients, with 40 assigned to an intervention group and 20 to a control group. Both groups will continue to receive usual care from their health care providers.

During the 12-week intervention, patients will also be given cell phones provided by GenerationOne that deliver testing and medication and wellness reminders and have the capacity for patients to input responses and personal data.

"Fifty-thousand people die every year from heart failure," said. Bernard A. Roos, MD, a co-investigator of the study and director of the Miller School's Geriatrics Institute and Division of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine and director of the Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC) at the VAMC. "That's the biggest health care cost we have – so effective management of the disease is really going to be an advance."

Drs. Roos and Cheung are experts in chronic disease and have developed proprietary scripts used by GenerationOne. Questions that heart failure sufferers will answer daily in the trial are designed to reveal critical information that will help health care providers reduce patients' emergency room visits and admissions.

SOURCE GenerationOne, Inc.; University of Miami