Vizient, a healthcare performance improvement company serving more than 50% of the nation’s acute care providers, has formed a strategic partnership agreement with Mpirik, a cloud-based care pathway software company focused on cardiac care. The partnership expands access to patient assessment and clinical programs that improve care and helps address health equity with the use of technology including artificial intelligence.

Vzient members who participate will have access to automatic identification of cardiac at-risk patients to improve outcomes. Mpirik’s algorithms will use diagnostic results, clinician notes, and schedules from the health system’s electronic health records (EHR) to determine if a patient has any of 18 cardiac diseases and an appropriate care plan.

“We are excited to have this strategic partnership agreement with Mpirik and offer clinical programs that utilize artificial intelligence to help physicians quickly identify at-risk patients based on multiple clinical risk factors,” said Bryan Grossman, SVP strategic supplier performance and category management for Vizient, in a company statement. “Through our recent pilot program, we have seen this platform help member health systems improve patient monitoring and reduce undertreatment that may come from disparities tied to gender or race. Improving outcomes provides a win for patients and providers.”

Members will also have access to automated patient identification alerts, which lead to decreased time from echocardiogram to intervention, according to the company. Through Mpirik’s Cardiac Intelligence platform, clinicians and/or administrators can view their patient population, manage identified patients with the purpose of eliminating undertreatment, and receive automated alert notifications on patients identified without an appropriate follow-up plan.

Real-time aggregate reporting will be available as well, to improve health equity and market development opportunities. Health systems may access customized, real-time aggregate reporting dashboards to derive insights into their patient population including quality/data outliers, therapy outcomes, and heat maps of population by zip code.

"Artificial intelligence solutions will be instrumental as a part of clinical practice to augment health care professionals,” said Dr. Sanjaya Gupta, Electrophysiologist at Saint Luke’s Health System, in prepared remarks. “Having a chance to utilize AI tools such as Mpirik's Cardiac Intelligence gives me the confidence in how AI can be an effective part of my practice while helping drive better patient outcomes."