Sutter Health, a nonprofit healthcare system based in Sacramento, California, is expanding its digital chronic disease management program, Sutter Sync, to include patients with heart failure. The expansion adds a remote monitoring technology from San Francisco-based medical tech company BodyPort.
Health systems are looking for ways to identify deterioration in a low acuity environment before chronic disease patients reach the point of needing emergency hospitalization.
The collaboration announced last week brings BodyPort’s FDA-cleared Cardiac Scale into Sutter Sync. The program now offers patients with heart failure who are flagged as being at high risk for hospitalization remote monitoring using the Cardica Scale, as well as app-based, personalized lifestyle education to better manage their heart failure symptoms.
The BodyPort scale measures fluid status and other cardiovascular indicators to give patients and healthcare providers a clearer picture of the patient’s current heart failure condition. The scale is designed so that patients simply need to step onto it once daily, just as one might with a standard bathroom scale. Data is then integrated into Epic, an electronic health record platform, to allow for the patient and their healthcare team to easily track changes over time. Between healthcare visits, Sutter pharmacists monitor trends and coordinate timely medication adjustments.
Sutter Sync is part of a growing remote patient monitoring (RPM) market, with competitors such as Zoll and Boston Scientific – among others – offering remote heart failure monitoring and EHR integration.
Heart failure – a condition which affects an estimated 7.7 million adults in the U.S. – is considered a chronic and progressive condition, but symptoms can fluctuate day-to-day. Severe exacerbations frequently land patients in the hospital for symptoms like cough, swelling, and shortness of breath.
“Much like for patients with hypertension and diabetes, without timely intervention for heart failure, patients may end up needing higher levels of care – it’s actually one of the leading causes of hospitalization in the U.S.,” said Sutter’s system vice president and chief clinical innovation officer Dr. Richard Milani. “Regular monitoring between visits helps care teams identify concerning changes earlier and adjust treatment before a patient’s condition deteriorates.”
The Sutter Sync program launched in March 2025, and has shown apparent success in supporting its participants’ chronic disease care. The program first opened to patients with hypertension, and then expanded to include patients with high cholesterol in October 2025. The following April, the program began piloting diabetes support. Sutter said in a news release that more than 13,000 patients have enrolled, and claimed that more than 90% of participants with previously uncontrolled high blood pressure achieved better control within six months.
“We’re encouraged by this data and look forward to hopefully seeing similar favorable results for heart failure care,” said Milani.
Milani said Sutter Sync was designed to address three challenges in chronic disease management: limited information between office visits, gaps in adherence to evidence-based guidelines, and the difficulty of encouraging patients to stick with sustained behavior changes.
“We created Sutter Sync with those factors in mind,” Milani said.
When asked about how much this program would save on hospital avoidance, Milani said that number would be hard to estimate. He added, “We believe through a more robust holistic approach that includes daily monitoring and timely intervention, we can improve both short and long-term outcomes for patients with heart failure.”
Photo: Kmatta, Getty Images
