The ACC and Heart Rhythm Society (HRS), in collaboration with the Bristol Myers Squibb-Pfizer Alliance, are launching an innovative project to improve management of atrial fibrillation (AFib) in underserved communities. The TRANSFORM: Atrial Fibrillation Quality Initiative (TRANSFORM: AF) will give clinicians and health systems tools to improve adoption of guideline-directed medical therapy in targeted patient populations by putting the right resources in front of the right people at the right time to drive measurable changes in performance.

TRANSFORM is an 18-month program that will provide a comprehensive set of tools and resources for appropriately managing AFib by leveraging telehealth, monitoring tools and virtual care. Lessons learned from the project will help to ensure that telehealth and virtual care improve access to equitable health care, rather than exacerbate existing inequalities in our health care system.

"Early and effective treatment is critical for appropriate management of AFib, but some communities are disproportionately impacted by this disease because of low rates of early intervention," said James L. Januzzi Jr., MD, FACC, TRANSFORM AF co-chair and ACC Board of Trustees member. "Through TRANSFORM: AF, we're giving clinicians tools to better understand AFib risks to improve treatment decisions and monitoring for future complications in a way that meets vulnerable patients where they are."

The program will be overseen and driven by the clinical leadership of ACC and HRS, along with ACC's Task Force on Health Equity and HRS's Digital Health Committee. The groups will initially conduct a baseline assessment with support from HealthReveal, a leading clinical artificial intelligence company, to identify high-risk patient populations from underserved communities experiencing economic disparities and barriers to care within selected regions and systems of focus.

Assessment findings will inform the most effective tools and educational interventions to address identified gaps in care, including patient education tutorials, quality improvement clinician toolkits, digital consumer health monitoring devices and clinician education. Through the alliance, HealthReveal will recommend life-saving patient care interventions to increase physicians' adherence to guideline- directed medical therapy, preempt future adverse cardiovascular events and improve patient outcomes.

"TRANSFORM AF provides us a unique opportunity to use telemedicine and artificial intelligence to better identify, risk stratify and treat the underserved vulnerable population, enabling collaborative and patient-centered care," adds Jagmeet P. Singh, MD, PhD, FACC, TRANSFORM AF co-chair and member of the HRS Governance Committee.

This initiative is the latest under the TRANSFORM umbrella. The ACC introduced TRANSFORM as a new kind of quality research program aimed to improve health care by transforming the quality of care across the multi-faceted areas of cardiovascular disease. TRANSFORM programs leverage clinical registry data, office-based interventions and partnerships to include the pharmaceutical and medical device industry, health plans, employers, clinicians and patients.

Clinical Topics: Arrhythmias and Clinical EP, Atrial Fibrillation/Supraventricular Arrhythmias

Keywords: Atrial Fibrillation, Quality Improvement, Vulnerable Populations, Artificial Intelligence, Cardiovascular Diseases, Telemedicine, Patient Care, Registries, Patient-Centered Care

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