A new app that can track heart patients and how they are doing in and out of the hospital is delivering some good early payback for The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The “Corrie” app for Apple devices is designed to help patients navigate the hospital discharge process by educating them about heart disease. The app allows patients to keep track of medications, follow-up appointments and lifestyle changes needed after a heart attack.

In a pilot study involving 60 patients, the app produced better outcomes and substantial cost savings, says Dr. William Yang, a resident in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the chief researcher for the app pilot study.

Using the Corrie app in conjunction with an iPhone and a wireless blood pressure monitor resulted in only a few readmissions to the hospital for early heart-related issues and preventive care savings of $250,000, Yang says.

Of the 60 participants using the app, only two patients were readmitted within 30 days, compared with 19% of all heart attack patients at Johns Hopkins, Yang says. Because the hospital does not receive Medicare reimbursement for patients readmitted within 30 days, reducing the number of patients coming back within a month represents a big cost savings in readmission penalties, he says.

“Many heart attack patients are started on new medications in the hospital,” Yang says. “This app helps them keep track of all their medications, including how much to take and at what time, and track medical appointments for visits such as cardiac rehabilitation.”

In addition to helping discharged patients,  the Corrie app also produced benefits when used by patients still in the hospital, Yang says. For example, two patients using the Corrie app realized they didn’t have a stent card after seeing them mentioned on the app and asked for one.

A stent card states the patient has a stent, describes what type and lists when it was implanted. These cards are useful if the patient is treated at another hospital that does not have the patient’s medical records. The app allows patients to take a picture of their stent card, insurance card and other important medical information and store it on the app, Yang says.

The researchers are refining the app based on patient feedback, Yang says. One such change has been the way in which the app reminds patients to take their medicine.

“In an earlier version, each medication reminder popped up separately, but patients who had to take a number of medications at the same time said that was overwhelming,” Yang says. “We changed it, and now patients receive one notification for all the medications they need to take at the same time.”

Other modifications include adding a notes section to appointments, so patients can write down questions to ask their doctors; including pictures of doctors in addition to their names, and allowing a one-click phone call to doctors’ offices.

“Corrie is a prescription-strength app we are deploying in the hospital,” Yang says. “It is intended to make a difference while in the hospital, where patients are engaged the most, have the most time, with their family at their bedside, and pre-discharge planning is possible.” Now that the first version of the Corrie app is developed and showing promising benefits in a pilot study, Johns Hopkins researchers are looking at ways to deploy the app to other health systems for broader use.

“This is a readily scalable program,” Yang says. “We’re already working with several other hospitals who are very interested in bringing ‘Corrie’ to their institutions.”

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