Adhera Health launches Artificial Intelligence project to support persistent COVID patients

CTA R&D&I Incentives Program

The R&D&I project, co-funded by CDTI and CTA and involving the Virgen de la Macarena University Hospital and the University of Seville, applies artificial intelligence to the monitoring of patients with persistent COVID.

The patient will be monitored through the information provided by smart bracelets (wearables) and questionnaires that he himself provides telematically about his state of health through the platform.

Last Friday, May 14, the company Adhera Health (Palo Alto, California), a pioneer in Precision Digital Therapeutics™, has launched, through its European subsidiary Salumedia Labs, a project that will enable the use of Artificial Intelligence to provide personalized support to people affected by long-term COVID symptoms.

The first successful meeting of the project partners, which took place in Barcelona, marked the beginning of research that will be founded on the application of Precision Digital Therapeutics™ and Artificial Intelligence in order to support patients with long-standing COVID. The research is made possible by technology from the Adhera Platform , a holistic digital solution developed by Adhera Health to support people with one or more chronic diseases.

The project aims to monitor, with the participation of clinical staff from primary care and hospitals in Andalusia and Catalonia, patients with persistent COVID through the information provided by smart bracelets (wearables) and questionnaires that the patient himself provides telematically about his state of health through this platform. In addition, the mobile solution will provide patients with emotional support and behavioral support for the acquisition of practices towards a healthier lifestyle.

Ricardo C. Berrios, executive founder and CEO of Adhera Health, says: “We are proud to say that Adhera Health is a company of the highest quality.As a digital health company with a strong scientific foundation, we have a unique opportunity to make available to long-term COVID patients our extensive scientific track record in developing digital health solutions that support healthcare systems in their transition to more personalized care.”

The project, co-financed by the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico e Industrial (CDTI) and Corporación Tecnológica de Andalucía (CTA), is headed by Adhera Health and has the collaboration of its partners in Andalusia (Hospital Universitario Virgen de Macarena, Distrito de Salud Aljarafe-Sevilla Norte and the University of Seville), and in Catalonia (Catalan Institute of Health).

The mobile solution will provide them with emotional and behavioral support for the acquisition of practices towards a healthier lifestyle.

Patient support

There is growing concern about the high burden of care in supporting patients with persistent COVID, including both those patients who have been severely affected by COVID-19 and those who have presented with mild symptoms but have persisted over time.

As the number of patients struggling with the lingering effects of COVID-19 increases, cases of acute COVID continue to emerge and there has been an increase in patients returning to primary care after having avoided it as the pandemic escalated. For these patients, delay in seeking care has often meant a worsening of chronic diseases.

Josep Vidal, Head of the Innovation and Research Unit in Primary Care of the Central Catalonia, warns that "much of the diagnosis and symptom management of patients with long-standing COVID will fall to primary care, which is where a more comprehensive and holistic view of the patient is taken. But in order for proper care to be provided, primary care needs to have good systems in place to follow patients and their symptoms over time."

The combined use of advanced psychometrics, technological devices and Artificial Intelligence will help to better understand the needs of these patients, thus supporting the delivery of personalized care. In addition, this platform, which will be the result of this project, will provide decision support for healthcare personnel and possible alerts about a worsening situation of patients with long-term COVID. Luis Gabriel Luque, head of the Research Unit of the Aljarafe-Sevilla Norte Health District, emphasizes that "the incorporation of these digital health technologies opens up a great potential for positive impacts by providing an efficient and personalized monitoring system for the evolution of patients' health status, thus supporting the decision-making process of healthcare professionals".

About Adhera Health

Adhera Health is a digital health company based in Palo Alto, California, developing cutting-edge behavioral science research combined with an advanced personalization technology platform to create digital and human solutions to empower people with chronic disease to achieve positive and lasting personal health outcomes, both physical and mental. Adhera Health's solutions have been deployed at multiple global customers, including Fortune 200 companies and small to mid-sized health systems. These solutions are based on real-world evidence that has been validated in prestigious scientific journals. Salumedia Labs is Adhera Health's European subsidiary focused on developing Adhera Health's scientific and research base for its Precision DigitalTherapeuticsÔ platform.

About CDTI

The CDTI, headquartered in Madrid, Spain, is a Public Business Entity, under the Ministry of Science and Innovation, which promotes innovation and technological development of Spanish companies, channeling requests for aid and support for R&D&I projects of these companies at the national and international levels.

About the University of Seville

The University of Seville (US) is a public university based in Seville, with extensive experience in international R&D&I programs. The MINERVA research group, which specializes in Artificial Intelligence and intelligent data analysis, participates in this project through the FIDETIA Foundation. This project will investigate artificial intelligence of data captured from patients using mobile and wearable technologies. More information http://grupo.us.es/minerva/.

About the Hospital Universitario Virgen de Macarena and the Aljarafe-Sevilla Norte Health Care District

The Hospital Universitario Virgen Macarena and the Aljarafe-Sevilla Norte Health District are entities of the Andalusian Health Service with extensive experience in the field of teaching, research and health knowledge management that jointly participate in this project in order to offer a coordinated follow-up of primary and hospital care professionals. This initiative will be supported by the HUVM's Infectious Diseases Service and the hospital's Innovation Unit, a unit specialized in the development and evaluation of digital health projects.

About Institut Català de la Salut

The Institut Català de la Salut (ICS) in Central Catalonia provides primary care services to half a million people, with 140 centers and clinics distributed among the 163 municipalities of the health region. The ICS in Central Catalonia has alliances with the four reference hospitals in the territory and has powerful innovation and research, pharmacy, teaching and training units.

Related success stories

Más CTA

More about CTA

Related success stories

Más CTA

More about CTA

Newsletter