Researchers demonstrate the potential for Verily’s Study Watch to help identify patients at risk for heart failure
This first-of-its-kind study uses a wrist worn clinical research device to investigate the association of digital walking measures with heart failure progression.
South San Francisco, CA - April 10, 2024 - A new publication in the Journal of Cardiac Failure conducted by Verily, Duke University, and Stanford University demonstrates that the walking behavior captured by Verily Study Watch1, a wrist-worn device designed for research purposes, is associated with different levels of Heart Failure (HF) risk for asymptomatic individuals or those at risk of developing HF compared to healthy patients.
Building off of Verily’s recent publication, which validated a suite of 18 digital measures of walking and ambulatory status classification, the study employed these walking measures, many of which showed significant association with pre-clinical stages of HF. The measures collected from a real-world setting correlated with in-clinic tests and surveys of physical functioning.
“The study proves that there is more to walking than the number of steps. This Project Baseline Health Study shows that participants with subclinical heart failure had lower walking cadence and pace when compared to healthy or at risk individuals,” said Francois Haddad, MD, Clinical Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford Medicine. “This work can be extended to future studies to determine how real-world walking behavior can identify individuals at risk of heart failure or clinical worsening.”
Over 1,200 participants from the Project Baseline Health Study (PBHS) who wore the Verily Study Watch were included in analyses. PBHS is a prospective, multicenter, longitudinal study including participants with diverse backgrounds and representative of a wide spectrum of health.
“As we look to the future, longitudinal registries combined with novel data collection methods will play an important role in generating evidence that represents broad populations,” said Andrew Trister, MD PhD, Chief Medical and Science Officer at Verily. “This study shows the potential for us to continuously learn about patient health and to use that knowledge to more precisely treat and manage disease.”
“The Project Baseline Health Study has yielded many clinical learnings since its launch and we are grateful to the dedicated participants who have made this work possible,” said Svati H. Shah, MD, MHS, director of the Duke Center for Precision Health. “We hope that the findings from this study will help clinicians better identify, and ultimately benefit, individuals who are at risk of experiencing heart failure.”
HF is a progressive disorder that can result in disability and mortality. Approximately 6.7 million Americans over 20 years of age have HF, and the prevalence is expected to rise to 8.5 million Americans by 20302. The lifetime risk of HF has increased to 24%; approximately 1 in 4 persons will develop HF in their lifetime3. While early diagnosis has been proven to prevent disease progression, there is a need for practical tools to help clinicians identify early signs of HF in order to guide care approaches that prevent clinical HF at the population level.
Verily launched the Project Baseline Health Study (PBHS) in 2017, with Stanford, Duke, and the California Health and Longevity Institute (CHLI), to help researchers better understand health and disease. With over 2,500 participants, PBHS has powered dozens of scientific publications covering areas such as mental health, cardiovascular disease, and accelerated aging.
About Verily
Verily is an Alphabet health technology company focused on research, care, and health financing to deliver on the promise of precision health and help people live healthier lives. We are uniquely positioned at the intersection of technology, data science, and healthcare to create tools to accelerate evidence generation, products to enable more personalized care, and approaches to make costs more predictable. For more information, please visit: verily.com.
Contact
Steven Cooper
Head of Media Relations, Verily
sjcoop@verily.com
References:
1 Verily Study Watch is an investigational medical device used in medical research and clinical care.
2 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31992061/
3 https://onlinejcf.com/article/S1071-9164(23)00264-6