American Heart Association Connected Care™, Powered by Cadence

An Easy Referral Option for Post-Hospital Heart Failure Care
older man at home at a table, checking his blood pressure with a cuff and monitor kit

The American Heart Association (AHA) is launching a program to offer a new way to support heart failure patients after they leave the hospital.

American Heart Association Connected Care™, Powered by Cadence is a remote care program that helps patients recover safely at home with 24/7 clinical support and easy-to-use devices that track their vital signs.

Hospitals can refer eligible patients to American Heart Association Connected Care, Powered by Cadence prior to discharge. Once enrolled, Cadence, a remote care delivery system and provider group, takes care of enrolling patients in the program, helping patients understand their potential financial obligation, teaching them how to use their devices, monitoring vital sign readings, and providing ongoing clinical support—at no cost to the hospital.

American Heart Association Connected Care, Powered by Cadence helps improve patient outcomes, reduce readmissions and extend care beyond the hospital walls.

How It Works

Step 1

Doctor speaking with patient
Hospital staff identify patients who meet the eligibility criteria and refer them to the program.

Step 2

a doctor in his office at his desk, talking on the phone
Patients can elect to participate in a consult over the phone, conducted by a Cadence Care Team member.

Step 3

a view looking down at a pair of feet standing on a scale at home
If the patient chooses to enroll into the program, Cadence ships a blood pressure cuff and weight scale to the patient’s home so they can perform regular vital checks at home.

Step 4

a doctor using a laptop in his office
The Cadence Care Team monitors and assesses the patient’s health data, which is transmitted automatically from the devices, and coordinates care to ensure comprehensive implementation of guideline directed medical therapy.

About Cadence

Cadence is the clinical care provider delivering the American Heart Association Connected Care program.

Cadence delivers proactive care and intervention as needed by collecting, analyzing and responding to patients’ vitals outside of the health care facility.

Learn more about Cadence
Doctor on phone

Statistics on Remote Patient Care (RPC)

Statistics cited below reflect outcomes from Cadence’s remote monitoring program for patients with heart failure, hypertension, and/or type 2 diabetes.

  • With daily vitals readings from smart devices, RPC led to over 3 times more heart failure patients achieving guideline-directed medical therapy (from 7% to 23%).(1)

  • Active Cadence patients take their vitals 22 days each month, on average.(2)

  • Among heart failure patients who enrolled in a comprehensive RPC program there was a 52% reduction in the total cost of care.(3)

  • A smart blood pressure cuff shares readings instantly with clinicians to ensure adequate control. The Cadence program led to two times more hypertension patients achieving blood pressure goals as compared to patients not on the program.(4) Such reductions are significant, given that every 20 mmHg systolic or 10 mmHg diastolic increase in blood pressure doubles the risk of both heart disease and stroke.(5)

  • After one year in Cadence’s remote monitoring program for heart failure, hypertension and/or type 2 diabetes, Cadence patients were hospitalized on average 27% less after 12 months following enrollment in the program than patients who were clinically eligible but not enrolled in the program.(6)

Pilot Program

About the Pilot Program

The American Heart Association is piloting Connected Care with 4 hospitals to establish patient referral and workflow best practices.

 Participating Pilot Hospitals
Health System Name Hospital Name Location
Texas Health Resources Texas Health Allen Allen, TX
Lifepoint Health Rutherford Regional Medical Center Rutherfordton, NC
Lifepoint Health Frye Regional Medical Center Hickory, NC
Montage Health Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula Monterey, CA

Learn More

Interested in learning more?

Email us: [email protected]

Top 5 FAQs

Q: Why is American Heart Association Connected Care, Powered by Cadence needed?

A: With chronic disease rates rising across the U.S., healthcare systems face ongoing challenges in reducing hospital stays and readmissions.(7) The number of people living with chronic illness is expected to double from 2020 to 2050(8). Alarmingly, nearly one in four heart failure patients is readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge(9), and fewer than 20% receive all four guideline-directed medical therapy pillars (GDMT) post-discharge, despite strong evidence showing these therapies improve patient outcomes.(10)

Q: What conditions will be monitored using American Heart Association Connected Care, Powered by Cadence?

A: Heart Failure at launch. We will explore other cardiovascular and cardiometabolic conditions for this program in the future.

Q: What patients can participate in/are excluded from the American Heart Association Connected Care, Powered by Cadence program?

A: American Heart Association Connected Care, Powered by Cadence will launch with 4 pilot hospital sites. The pilot program is intentionally scoped to include traditional Medicare patients with heart failure. There are several clinical exclusions for the program (e.g., patients with end stage renal disease or severe aortic valve stenosis). Patients will be evaluated before enrollment for these exclusions.

Q: How many patients are expected to participate in the pilot program?

A: American Heart Association Connected Care, Powered by Cadence expects to enroll 600-700 patients across 4 hospital sites for a 6-month pilot program.

Q: What are the clinical goals of the program?

A: Powered by Cadence’s technology and its 24/7 remote multidisciplinary Care Team, American Heart Association Connected Care aims to:

  • Reduce 30-day readmissions
  • Optimize length of stay
  • Improve patient outcomes

Sources

  1. Increase from 7%-23% - Feldman D, et al. “Leveraging remote patient monitoring to effectively put the heart failure guidelines to practice.” J Card Fail. 2024;30(9):1166-1169. doi: 10.1016/j.cardfail.2024.04.018.

  2. Data from Cadence patients from Jan 1, 2024 - Nov 11, 2024.

  3. The majority attributed to reduction in hospital and post-hospital discharge spending. Feldman D, et al. “Leveraging remote patient monitoring to effectively put the heart failure guidelines to practice.” J Card Fail. 2024;30(9):1166-1169. doi: 10.1016/j.cardfail.2024.04.018.

  4. Feldman D, Campbell M, Babikian S, et al. Abstract 12950: A nationwide remote patient intervention hypertension program: Can remote patient monitoring and a multi-disciplinary team of clinicians improve blood pressure control? Circulation. 2023;148(suppl_1):12950. doi:10.1161/circ.148.suppl_1.12950.

  5. National High Blood Pressure Education Program. The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; 2004. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/files/docs/guidelines/jnc7full.pdf.

  6. Altchek C., Feldman D., Fudim M., Presentation, American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, November 2024, “Implementing Guidelines, Improving Outcomes & Lowering Cost with Remote Patient Care” (p. 15), https://ahahealthtech.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Cadence_AHA24_11.16.24_Final-Presented.pdf.

  7. Kripalani S, Theobald CN, Anctil B, Vasilevskis EE. Reducing hospital readmission rates: current strategies and future directions. Annu Rev Med. 2014;65:471-85. doi: 10.1146/annurev-med-022613-090415.

  8. Ansah JP, Chiu CT. Projecting the chronic disease burden among the adult population in the United States using a multi-state population model. Front Public Health. 2023 Jan 13. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1082183.

  9. Khan, Muhammad Shahzeb, Sreenivasan, Jayakumar, et al. Trends in 30- and 90-Day Readmission Rates for Heart Failure. 2021. Circulation: Heart Failure. Vol 14. No 4. doi:10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.121.008335. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.121.008335.

  10. Jacobs, Joshua A., Ayodele, Iyanuoluwa, et al. Social Determinants of Health and Disparities in Guideline-Directed Medical Therapy Optimization for Heart Failure. 2025. Circulation: Heart Failure. Vol 18 No 1. doi:10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.124.012357. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.124.012357.