Story Health CEO Tom Stanis on Taking Tech to Specialty Care, Starting with Heart Failure

Specialty care for heart failure patients is getting a tech-boost thanks to Story Health and co-founder and CEO Tom Stanis (who those in health tech may remember as a co-founder of Verily) is here to tell us how. The platform Story Health is building is putting tech to-the-task in a couple ways: first, bringing continuous care to heart failure patients, who now typically only see their specialists once every couple months, and second, ensuring that clinicians are able to meet those patients with guideline-directed therapy that is optimized to each patient’s real-time needs based on the previous two-weeks (not two months!) of patient health data. “This is a logistics problem,” says Tom, as he explains that cardiac doctors know the guidelines, but that they aren’t able to effectively implement them by just seeing patients in the clinic every couple months. He says less than 5% of heart failure patients are actually on guideline-directed therapy because it is usually focused on medications that require a lot of monitoring for side-effects and ongoing adjustment and titration. Story Health’s platform uses a combination of remote patient monitoring, telehealth coaching, and a slick EHR integration that brings a stream of regular, real-time patient data to clinicians – along with intelligent guidelines recommendations – so they can make the best decision possible for the next course of action for their patient on a biweekly, rather than bimonthly basis. The result of this ability to more dynamically (and regularly) adjust care plans? What Tom calls a “world class” outcome: Story Health’s heart failure patients have a 30-day all-cause readmission rate of 7%. Typically, this number is 20-30%. We talk more about Tom’s long-term plans to scale the Story Health platform (diabetes and renal disease are targets down the road), the randomized control trial it just started with Duke to prove out its clinical validity, and its market expansion to a ‘risk-bearing’ client base. And, as a BONUS, Tom lends us some advice as an engineer with a lengthy career successfully integrating technology into healthcare: How does he decide where there should be tech and where there should be a human? What’s the best way to involve clinicians in a build? And, a favorite…where do health tech startups today commonly make mistakes? *** Jessica DaMassa, the emerging ‘It girl’ of health tech interviewing, chats it up with the ‘who’s who’ of the health tech and healthcare innovation set on 'WTF Health - What's the Future, Health?' Catch 100's of interviews with leading health tech startups and the VC investors, health insurance companies, big pharma co's, and hospital systems helping bring their new ideas into the healthcare establishment. From AI and Big Data to digital health, virtual care, telehealth, digital therapeutics, payment model innovation, and investing, Jessica helps you spot the trends and figure out what’s next. Subscribe to WTF Health’s YouTube Channel:    / wtfhealth   Follow Jess DaMassa on Twitter:   / jessdamassa   Visit WTF Health: https://www.wtf.health "WTF Health - What's the Future, Health?" is sponsored in part by OneDrop, Pfizer, Wheel, Komodo Health, Crossover Health, 120/80 MKTG, & Bayer G4A. To learn more about WTF Health or throw some sponsorship dollars at our show yourself, check out www.wtf.health.