AliveCor is entering into a partnership with GE Healthcare. AliveKor’s FDA-cleared, AI-enabled KardiaMobile 6L EKG device is placed on a person’s left knee to take a hospital-grade EKG.

GE Healthcare made two major announcements this week at the Global Health Conference & Exhibition in Orlando that signaled the company’s aim to help providers access more in-depth, real-time patient data to improve clinical decision-making and care.

First, on Tuesday, the Chicago-based company announced that it is developing an AI-enabled digital health platform. The Edison Digital Health Platform will aggregate data from multiple sources and vendors, support clinical apps and provide a holistic view of each patient, according to the company.

Then on Wednesday, GE Healthcare announced a partnership with Mountain View, California-based AliveCor through which electrocardiogram readings taken on the medical device company’s personal EKG device will be delivered directly into GE Healthcare’s MUSE Cardiac Management System.

That will allow doctors at cardiac hospitals with the system to quickly assess patients who have, for example, heart rhythm conditions such as atrial fibrillation. So for a patient who used the device remotely, a doctor can use that information to determine if a patient needs to be seen immediately. And the reading will also be used to help make care decisions during medical office visits.

Every hospital has something called a heart station, where cardiologists are required to look at each EKG coming in, confirm it and then take action accordingly, explained Ashutosh Banerjee, general manager for diagnostic cardiology at GE Healthcare, in a sit-down interview at HIMSS22.

“The problem today is that the workflow is broken,” he said.

Where EKG is taken at home with devices like AliveCor, that information often does not reach the heart station, he noted.

Instead, the current status quo is for a patient using AliveCor’s Kardia device to pull up the EKG results on their phone during an office visit or a email a PDF of the reading. But the data isn’t integrated into the clinical workflow — it’s not in a patient’s EMR — so a doctor can’t easily compare the EKG to previous EKGs or results from other diagnostic tools and tests.

“Now with this partnership, the beauty of what is going to happen is those EKGs are going to flow directly to their physicians in the hospitals,” said Priya Abani, CEO of AliveCor, who joined Banerjee at GE Healthcare’s booth to discuss the partnership.

The terms of GE Healthcare and AliveCor’s partnership were not disclosed. But where Muse is already used by a hospital system, AliveCor will be sold as a subscription to that hospital system.

The personal device will be prescribed for some patients with cardiac conditions. When a patient records an EKG using AliveCor’s device, the data will automatically be transferred from AliveCor’s cloud server directly into MUSE.

“Longitudinal data collection is very critical for a patient journey,” Abani said.

That includes being able to compare past and present readings for a patient to better understand how a patient is faring and the best way to handle their care in the moment. And, critically, the partnership allows that data to be delivered in a way that’s meaningful and can be readily interpreted by a doctor, according to the companies.

“It’s effective and curated, and it’s timely,” Abani said.

It’s also just the type of new advancement in secure patient data sharing the Edison platform will support.

GE Healthcare said the platform will be a cost-effective and efficient way to speed digital innovation, help providers grow revenue, improve care and provide a better experience for health providers.

Edison Digital Health Platform is designed to accelerate app integration by connecting devices and other data sources, according to the company.

“The future is very clear. It will be aided with technology, direct patient engagement and intelligence built into it,” said Paritosh Dhawale, senior vice president and general manager of the Edison Platform at GE Healthcare, who was also at HIMSS.

The EMR will still be the system of record, he said. But the aim is to provide an alternative to siloed patient data that doctors can’t access, while also sharing apps and other tools that improve care.

“We see different systems (coming together) with platforms like Edison,” Dhawale said.

Photo: AliveCor