The goal to advance patient-centered care and optimize operational efficiencies by leveraging digital health solutions is experiencing a rapid uptake.
Sault Area Hospital (SAH) recently shared the results of launching a surgical remote monitoring program by leveraging a Digital Care Journey solution as part of their Digital Health strategy. Keeping up with the rising demands for accessible care, the program is focused on improving engagement and timely communication between patients and care teams. A form of digital patient engagement, the platform enables improved pre-surgical readiness, safer hospital-to-home transitions, and improves patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes, such as lower emergency department visits and readmissions.
Dr. James Chan, Director of Innovation, SAH, sees immense value in leveraging interoperable digital patient engagement tools to deliver high-quality care more efficiently. He shared that at SAH, “Technology has increased our ability to connect with patients and encourage them to become active participants in their healthcare journey. Our patients report feeling more supported because of it.”
Since the initial deployment in 2021 for hip and knee replacement surgery, SAH has expanded the use of Digital Care Journeys to a total of 13 care pathways across General Surgery (Colorectal, Hernia, Urology, and more), Orthopedic Surgery, and Women’s Health (C-section and Hysterectomy).
Helping patients and care teams alike
Using the SaaS-based platform, SAH can engage patients with a mobile and web-enabled, virtual companion – guiding them step-by-step from pre-admission preparation through post-discharge recovery as well as deliver multimedia education, reminders, and tasks for patients throughout their care journey. While recovering at home, patients can self-report data such as pain scores, range of motion, symptoms, and share incision photos through the platform with their care team.
“Visuals on exercises, daily reminders, the fact that a healthcare professional is available, list of places to get needed equipment, reminders to look for infection, lists to get you ready for surgery like planning for meals once on your own, what kind of help you will require. Overall – Excellent,” shared a SAH patient on what they valued about the program.
Meanwhile, the SAH care teams can remotely monitor recovery progress and patient compliance, automate patient self-care guidance via smart algorithms and workflows (e.g., education on how to manage low-risk issues or when to escalate to a provider), receive alerts and monitor dashboards to identify at-risk patients more quickly and intervene sooner.
The program also helped expand accessibility to care and efficiency, serve the rural patient population more effectively, as well as the use of actionable insights from collected data to optimize hospital protocols and
procedures.
EHR integration reduces workload
The implementation has been further enhanced by platform integration with MEDITECH Expanse. It has helped expedite patient enrollment, access remote monitoring dashboards from within the Expanse patient chart and send patients instructions and reminders. This turnkey integration has reduced manual processes, saving SAH care teams and their patients valuable time and creating a more effortless provider and patient
experience.
For instance, when a surgery is booked in Expanse, patients who consent to the program are automatically enrolled into the Digital Care Journey app. If their surgery date changes, that information is automatically updated in the app, along with pre-surgery steps and reminders. Providers can easily monitor patient-reported information in the platform without ever exiting the electronic health record.
“The turnkey integration of SeamlessMD with MEDITECH Expanse streamlines our clinical workflows, reducing manual effort and enabling our providers to save valuable time. Automating care delivery strengthens our ability to easily track and monitor patient compliance and adherence with treatment plans to improve patient outcomes, while at the same time empowering patients to take charge of their health through self-management,” said Dr. Derek Garniss, CMIO, SAH.
Key outcomes
Leveraging these platform features, SAH care teams have been able to intervene sooner for at-risk patients and provide personalized care recommendations to improve the patient experience and outcomes, including reducing ED visits by 72 per cent and readmissions by 64 per cent.
SAH patients also found that self-managing their care journey was easy and staying connected to their care team helped reduce surgical anxiety. Of the patients enrolled, 37 per cent reported that the app prevented 1+ calls to the hospital, 94 per cent felt it helped them feel more confident before surgery, and 91 per cent felt it helped them feel more confident at home after surgery.
“Since this was my first surgery of this type, it helped me to know whether or not my recovery was on track, gave me access to helpful tools and to the healthcare team if you needed,” shared a SAH patient.
By Dr. Joshua Liu