UConn Health has embraced a groundbreaking digital health platform to revolutionize musculoskeletal care. This technology streamlines patient education, care pathways, and data collection, addressing the challenges posed by pain and mobility issues in over 50% of U.S. adults. The platform overcomes access barriers and integrates seamlessly with electronic health records, ensuring personalized care plans. Early results show an impressive 87% patient compliance rate in reporting outcomes, with the potential to improve key performance indicators. This digital approach not only enhances patient engagement and satisfaction but also lowers costs, setting a precedent for healthcare innovation nationwide.
UConn Health has taken a major leap forward in healthcare by implementing a cutting-edge digital health platform, streamlining various aspects of patient care, and enhancing access to orthopedic care services. This innovative technology not only standardizes patient education and care pathways but also ensures the consistent collection of patient-reported outcomes and other essential data within their spine, joint, and sports medicine departments.
Musculoskeletal care holds immense significance in the healthcare landscape, as over 50% of adults in the United States grapple with musculoskeletal conditions, which significantly impact their quality of life, mental health, and overall well-being.
The Challenge: Pain and mobility issues stemming from these conditions lead to challenges in daily living, independence, and the burden of comorbidities like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. To address these issues and promote health equity, UConn Health sought to expand orthopedic care access, particularly for rural and underserved communities. They also aimed to standardize evidence-based care pathways across their healthcare system while offering flexible virtual options for patient education, physical therapy, and care team communication.
Dr. Isaac L. Moss, Chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at UConn Health, stated, “Particularly for patients in rural areas, the digital care management approach is a proven conduit for improving access. For example, it eliminates the time, expense, and stress patients experience traveling to attend their pre-surgery class and in-person follow-up visits for joint replacement surgery.”
Proposal: UConn Health adopted the digital care management platform offered by Force Therapeutics, which has proven to effectively engage patients in their prescribed care plans. This platform leverages interactive educational content, customized goal-setting, and direct messaging tools to support patient adherence to post-surgery recoveries and nonsurgical care pathways. Importantly, it also overcomes common access barriers such as internet connectivity, language, learning styles, and scheduling conflicts.
The platform empowers care teams to standardize patient education and care pathways for different conditions while consistently collecting patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and other vital data across the spine, joint, and sports medicine service lines. Moreover, it allows flexibility to tailor care pathways to individual patient needs.
Meeting the Challenge: UConn Health successfully integrated the platform with its Epic electronic health record system, creating a seamless process from surgery scheduling through preoperative care to postoperative recovery at home. This standardized, digitized approach provides care teams with a holistic view of each patient, enabling personalized diagnosis and care information based on individual needs and support structures at home.
Patients engage with educational content that caters to their learning styles, set their own care goals, and even participate in gamified activities to enhance their understanding and commitment to achieving the best possible outcomes. The platform allows care teams to actively monitor PROs, which include pain, function, mental health, and overall well-being. Early intervention is possible when patients face challenges, preventing complications from escalating and reducing the need for emergency department visits and readmissions.
Results: While it’s still early days since the platform’s launch, UConn Health is already seeing promising results. Approximately 200 patients have engaged with the platform, with an impressive 87% compliance rate in reporting PROs, pain levels, and activity. The platform is expected to provide valuable insights into various key performance indicators, including length of stay, readmissions, and patient safety.
The wealth of data collected also positions UConn Health to meet stringent CMS reporting requirements, ensuring they stay ahead of the curve in delivering high-quality care.
Advice for Others: Dr. Moss emphasizes the effectiveness of digital care management technology in improving patient engagement, satisfaction, care quality, and outcomes while reducing costs. He encourages organizations to involve leadership and care teams from key service lines in the evaluation process, fostering buy-in, adoption, and standardization of evidence-based care plans for their patient populations. By embracing these technologies, healthcare providers can meet patients where they are, removing barriers to high-quality care across the nation.
