Telehealth and Care Continuity

“Telemedicine opportunities include ease of subspecialist access, easier postoperative evaluations, decreased travel burden for out-of-town patients, marketing and an increased proportion of actual in-office patient visits being surgical in nature.”
Orthopedics Today

We hear the skepticism all the time; how can an orthopedist practice their craft without touching a patient?

But let’s rethink this question in light of two fundamental truths found in today’s orthopedic practice:

1. Most post-operative visits to an orthopedic surgeon are simple rechecks to look at how a wound is healing. The process is visual, usually ending with either, “You’re healing well,” or, “Let me prescribe an antibiotic.” Most of these visits are less than five minutes long.

2. Telemedicine cuts the time you and your patients spend on these visits. The technology allows doctors to see more patients while reducing overhead. It also allows patients to cut the time and travel costs associated with seeing you for five minutes for a simple yet necessary recheck.

If you’ve joined the ranks of the orthopedic practitioners considering telemedicine, this article will help you begin to visualize how to use the technology in your orthopedic workflows. How can you begin to offer this service to your patients and what benefits can the technology bring to your practice?

“As our global population grows older with a higher incidence of chronic conditions, we have an imperative to truly improve quality of care both within and beyond the walls of the hospital while reducing costs. Continuity of care plays a key role in patient management by ensuring that patients experience a smooth transition from the hospital back to the home, and new models of care that utilize telehealth technologies will be important to support this process and reduce rehospitalizations.”
“Using Telehealth to Improve Continuity of Care”
Brooke Schmidt
Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare

The goal of telemedicine is simply to bring treatment to the patient wherever they may be. This goes to the heart of the “patient first” goal of care continuity. Telehealth can bring together a dispersed healthcare team and their patients in the following ways:

• Strengthens the doctor/patient relationship
  Video-enabled treatment can follow a patient home after their inpatient stay while allowing clinicians to provide additional clinical counsel to patients and their caregivers. This can strengthen the doctor/patient relationship; studies show this can engage patients in their own treatment and increase patient satisfaction with their quality of care.
• Reduce inpatient costs
  Most hospitals are now providing treatment by using telemedicine applications. Studies have shown that telemedicine can reduce inpatient admissions on long-term chronic diseases. This is on-demand treatment that can link mid-levels, clinicians, patients, and their families. Telehealth is available both as an on-call or scheduled service. This can cut down on emergency room trips – which also reduces costs.
• Improves communication
  But it’s the simple idea of improving the speed and accuracy of communication between specialty providers that hold such power within the telehealth framework. One study utilized a nurse as a clinical care coordinator for a group of patients. Remote monitoring was utilized to help patients make better behavioral choices to more positively affect clinical outcomes on chronic disorders. Care between doctors was streamlined by using simply video conferencing to coordinate treatment.

As the majority of the American population moves toward retirement, healthcare costs will continue to skyrocket. Care will continue to be disjointed, which will ensure that patient care quality and even mortality will continue to suffer. Telehealth can shift the paradigm and fill treatment gaps to improve the patient experience. Providers such as OrthoLive, have developed specific applications that leverage this important technology to cut costs, and improve outcomes. Contact OrthoLive to get to know telemedicine, its benefits, and how it could help your practice.