NuMaC Cardiovascular Patient Nutrition Management System Launches, Targeting 330 Million Patients in China

Recently, Beijing Yiming Technology Co., Ltd. announced the official launch of its product, the “NuMaC Nutritional Management System for Cardiovascular Patients.”

NuMaC, jointly developed by the Department of Nutrition at the First Medical Center of the Chinese PLA General Hospital and Beijing Yiming Technology Co., Ltd., is one of the few nutrition management systems in China specifically designed for patients with cardiovascular disease. NuMaC integrates standardized nutritional risk screening and dietary assessment with highly personalized dietary improvement recommendations, customized meal plans, and out-of-hospital dietary management and follow-up. The system features functionalities tailored to cardiovascular disease, including nutritional risk screening, dietary assessment, and post-discharge dietary management.

“Report on Cardiovascular Health and Diseases in China 2019” shows that the prevalence and mortality of cardiovascular diseases in China are still on the rise, with an estimated 330 million people currently affected. The burden of cardiovascular diseases in China is increasing day by day, becoming a major public health issue. Therefore, the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases are urgent.

According to statistical reports from the World Health Organization, 60% of chronic diseases are associated with unhealthy lifestyles. Malnutrition resulting from unhealthy dietary habits and imbalanced dietary structures constitutes a significant obstacle that cannot be overlooked in the prevention and control of chronic diseases. In clinical practice, the effective integration of targeted nutritional management significantly contributes to improved clinical outcomes, enhanced ward turnover rates, and reduced proportions of pharmaceutical costs as well as overall medical expenditures.

In the notice on the National Nutrition Plan (2017–2030) issued by the General Office of the State Council in 2017, clear implementation requirements were proposed for “Clinical Nutrition Actions” under the goal of “increasing the rate of nutritional screening among hospitalized patients and the proportion of malnourished hospitalized patients receiving nutritional therapy”:

“Comprehensive nutritional screening, assessment, diagnosis, and treatment should be implemented for inpatients.” Gradually implement nutritional screening for inpatients to assess their nutritional status, establish a standardized clinical nutrition care pathway based on the sequence of nutritional screening–assessment–diagnosis–treatment, provide nutritional therapy to malnourished inpatients in accordance with the principles of stepped nutrition therapy, and regularly evaluate the effectiveness of such interventions.

Promote nutritional prevention and control of nutrition-related chronic diseases. Conduct nutritional assessments for hospitalized patients with nutrition-related chronic diseases and implement categorized, guided treatment. Establish a long-term nutritional management model for patients with nutrition-related chronic diseases that spans hospitals, communities, and households, and carry out tiered nutritional therapy.

At the recently held “Inaugural Conference of the Clinical Nutrition and Health Branch of the Chinese Health Management Association & 2021 High-Level Forum on Clinical Nutrition and Health,” participating experts discussed strategies and actions for effectively implementing “integrating nutrition into clinical practice.”

Professor Liu Gang, Vice President of the First Hospital of Hebei Medical University and Director of the Heart Center, shared several valuable experiences in implementing “clinical nutrition” within the hospital:

First, the MDT model promoting collaboration between the Department of Nutrition and clinical departments has improved clinical efficiency under nutritional support and driven the coordinated development of multiple disciplines;

Secondly, by leveraging digital technologies and tools, standardized nutritional screening, assessment, and dietary management services are provided to a broader population of patients in need, thereby allocating limited professional dietitian resources to address the most urgent clinical demands;

Meanwhile, in the clinical implementation of nutritional care, targeted nutritional support and management plans are formulated based on the characteristics and needs of different disciplines, providing patients with more precise medical services, enhancing patient satisfaction, and generating revenue for hospitals.

Professor Liu Yinghua, Director of the Department of Clinical Nutrition at the First Medical Center of the Chinese PLA General Hospital and newly appointed Chair of the Clinical Nutrition and Health Branch of the Chinese Health Management Association, stated in her presentation on “Clinical Application of Digital Nutritional Assessment in Patients with Coronary Heart Disease” thatExisting general nutritional risk screening and assessment tools are not applicable to overnutrition-related malnutrition. However, a significant proportion of patients with cardiovascular disease suffer from this condition. The current lack of specialized nutritional risk screening and assessment tools for these patients hinders the implementation of nutritional interventions.

To better implement the nutritional prescription, one of the five core components of cardiac rehabilitation, in clinical practice and to promote the recovery of patients with cardiovascular disease, Professor Liu Yinghua and her team have distilled a standardized process and knowledge base for nutritional risk screening and dietary assessment in patients with coronary heart disease, drawing on their valuable experience and knowledge system accumulated through years of collaboration with the cardiology department.In close collaboration with Yiming Technology, we leveraged big data AI technologies along with Yiming’s patented CHDN algorithm and computing power to develop the first-generation nutrition risk screening and dietary assessment system tailored for patients with coronary heart disease.

Director Liu Yinghua introduced that a clinical study involving 150 patients with coronary heart disease (CHD), titled “Evaluation of the Effectiveness of an Electronic Self-Assessment System for Nutrition in Patients with Coronary Heart Disease,” has yielded highly positive results. The study concluded that this assessment system can effectively reflect patients’ dietary intake and nutritional risk status, showing no statistically significant differences compared to offline assessments and results provided by dietitians. The article has been officially published in the journal *China Food & Nutrition*.

With the professional support of Director Liu Yinghua’s team, Yiming Technology further upgraded and optimized its first-generation system to address issues identified in the clinical study results, resulting in NuMaC, a precision nutrition management system for cardiovascular disease patients—one of the very few such systems available on the Chinese market.

The launch and application of this tool will not only actively promote the effective implementation of the “Nutrition in Clinical Practice” initiative, thereby providing patients with higher-quality medical services and enhancing their satisfaction, but also offer more innovative approaches for the implementation of precision clinical nutrition.

NuMaC is the first step taken by Yiming Technology in its journey of exploration in the field of digital therapeutics.Through years of deep engagement and accumulation in the healthcare and big data sectors, Yiming Technology is dedicated to developing and providing multi-modal digital therapeutics products for clinical use, aiming to enhance the effectiveness of long-term treatment and self-management for patients with chronic diseases, thereby truly helping them achieve better clinical outcomes.