Virtual specialty care company Story Health and Guidehealth, an AI-enabled value-based care provider for health systems, announced their partnership to develop a cardiology program for hospital systems and clinically integrated networks (CINs) based on a value-based care model.

California-based Story Health offers telehealth, health coaches, AI, and connected devices to provide patients with continuous specialty care for heart-related and other chronic conditions. It also allows doctors to access patient data and receive personalized recommendations based on a physician's historical prescribing patterns.  

Guidehealth's value-based care platform offers providers AI insights into which patients need specific care before a preventable health event, virtual health guides for patient/provider and community connection and engagement and workflow-focused tools.

Through the partnership, Guidehealth and Story Health will coordinate to provide patient care for at-risk individuals and work with providers to ensure a patient's care remains on track. 

Guidehealth's Healthguides, which works with a health system's clinical team to support patients with prior authorizations and in-network referrals, will identify patients qualified to enroll in Story Health's program and keep providers current on the patient's progress. 

"By integrating Story Health, whose proven programs clinically support patients at home and between office visits, we can ensure excellent health outcomes that improve the quality of care without adding significant extra costs," Sanjay Doddamani, Guidehealth cofounder and CEO, told MobiHealthNews in an email.

Simultaneously, Story Health's specialized care team of cardiologists, nurses and health coaches will work directly with patients to keep their care on track.    

“The new model of care that Story Health and Guidehealth are using addresses many of the underlying challenges. Our shared purpose is to provide the best care we can to as many patients as we can, no matter where they live, while reducing the total cost of care,” Story Health cofounder and CEO Tom Stanis told MobiHealthNews.

THE LARGER TREND

In December, Guidehealth acquired healthcare data analytics company Arcadia's value-based care services division and managed services organization. The company also signed an agreement to leverage Arcadia's data analytics platform to power the acquired offerings. 

In 2020, Story Health launched with $4 million in seed funding, and two years later secured $22.6 million in a Series A round.

Last year, Story announced a strategic partnership with Intermountain Healthcare to allow the health system's heart failure patients to access care outside the clinical setting.   

The company also partnered with West Virginia University's Heart and Vascular Institute to offer coaches who could collaborate with the health system's clinicians to provide patient monitoring and engagement as well as clinical support. 

In May, Kansas City-based Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute and Story Health announced plans to codevelop an atrial fibrillation (AFib) program for the health system's patients.