In the US, the NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory Coordinating Center has announced that its Chat 4 Heart Health trial will be moving to the implementation phase, after receiving approval to test the “comparative effectiveness” of text message delivery strategies for encouraging self-management for cardiovascular health.
The trial, supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, hopes to bring about evidence on “the best population-based strategy for universal delivery” to help engage patients in self-management of health behaviours including physical activity and medication adherence.
Around 2,200 eligible patients from clinics across Denver Health and Hospital Authority, Salud Family Health Centers, and STRIDE Community Health Center will be identified using EHR data to take part in the trial.
Centred around the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8 (LE8) lifestyle factors, which include eating better, managing blood pressure, and controlling cholesterol, the trial is based on the premise that the “self-management of chronic disease by patients has strong evidence of benefit”, and that text messaging-based interventions have been used to improve health behaviours such as medication adherence in other areas of health.
A total of three different text messaging delivery strategies will be employed for the patient-level randomised trial: “generic” text messages, an AI-based chatbot messaging using evidence-based communication strategies and patient context to influence self-management, and an interactive AI-based chatbot text messaging with “proactive pharmacist management”.
Elsewhere in cardiovascular health, a $50 million grant announced earlier this year from the Albanese government for the Australian Artificial Heart Frontiers Program, will help to develop and commercialise its “Total Artificial Heart”, with hopes to harness technology to “halve deaths from heart failure” globally.
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