KT Develops Service for Recording and Managing Heart Failure Symptoms

[Asia Economy Reporter Eunmo Koo] KT announced on the 15th that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to jointly research and develop a patient hospitalization risk management service to prevent readmission of heart failure patients, together with the Korean Society of Heart Failure and Novartis Korea.

Heart failure is a condition in which the heart's function is impaired due to cardiovascular disease, cardiomyopathy, hypertension, valvular disease, etc., resulting in inadequate blood supply to body tissues. Major symptoms include shortness of breath, leg swelling and weight gain due to blood congestion, and severe fatigue.

KT plans to promote ▲ development of a service that allows heart failure patients to record and manage their symptoms independently ▲ development of a service that enables medical staff to check symptoms recorded by patients. In particular, considering that heart failure is a disease mainly affecting the elderly, AI technologies such as artificial intelligence chatbots will be applied to make it easier for patients to use.

The Korean Society of Heart Failure will support the joint research by designing symptom management models and algorithms for heart failure patients, conducting academic research to verify the validity of joint research outcomes, and researching patient-tailored heart failure content. Professors belonging to the AI-Big Data Research Group of the Korean Society of Heart Failure will actively participate. Novartis Korea plans to share heart failure-related content and provide consultation on research design and progress to verify the validity of joint research outcomes.

According to the Korean Society of Heart Failure, the prevalence of heart failure in Korea has steadily increased from 0.77% in 2002 to 2.24% in 2018. Especially, 12% of those aged 80 and above have been diagnosed with heart failure, and the number of patients is expected to continue increasing due to aging. The 5-year survival rate of hospitalized patients with acute heart failure is 55%, whereas the 5-year survival rate of outpatients is 86%. Through consistent management and early detection, diagnosis, and treatment, worsening of heart failure can be prevented, thereby reducing readmissions.

If early warning signs of heart failure exacerbation are detected in advance and understanding of heart failure is improved, outpatient treatment can be received before emergency situations occur, reducing the risk of hospitalization.

Seongseong Lee, Executive Director and Head of Digital & Biohealth P-TF at KT’s Future Value Promotion Office, said, “We will do our best to provide services that enable the continuously increasing number of elderly heart failure patients to manage their disease independently, detect early warning signs of heart failure, and receive appropriate treatment.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.