Success with Digital Care Solutions: 3 Strategies for Clinicians

Digital care solutions are technologies, such as telehealth, home exercise programs, and AI tools, that enhance patient care and clinical workflows. From a rehab perspective, digital care is transforming musculoskeletal (MSK) care delivery, offering numerous benefits such as improved access to care, stronger patient rapport, easier workflows for clinicians, and reduced costs.

The solutions in the marketplace vary in application and intent, from aiming to replace in-person visits with telehealth solutions, to remote healthcare technologies that help employers and insurers lower costs through patient wearable devices. As a rehab clinician, you play a crucial role in selecting the appropriate digital care software for your practice by understanding both the benefits to your workflows and the return to patients in the optimization of their care.

Adopting new workflows and proving patients with new tools can be challenging, but understanding the benefits and practical applications of digital care solutions can make the transition smoother. Here are three best practices for integrating digital care effectively into your practice.

1. Understand the Benefits of Digital Care Solutions

You dedicate significant time to patient care, and digital tools are designed to support—not replace—your efforts. Understanding how digital tools can enhance your care delivery is crucial. These tools can help free up your time, improve communication with patients, and strengthen the therapeutic alliance. By seeing the direct benefits, such as more time for patient interaction and simplified patient management, you might find these tools indispensable.

Examples of digital care solutions include straightforward digital home exercise programs, telehealth consultations, and advanced AI-enabled motion capture for movement analysis. Familiarizing yourself with these tools will help you see their relevance to your practice and how they can be integrated smoothly into your existing workflows. The APTA offers a great infographic to help guide digital care implementation and focuses on learning to balance the advantages of digital care delivery with the still emerging evidence around the efficacy and application of digital care.

2. Equip Yourself for Success

Helping your patients embrace digital care will make your program much more effective. Using motivational interviewing techniques can significantly enhance patient engagement. In the MedBridge course series “Motivational Interviewing When You’re Short on Time,” industry expert Dawn Clifford offers valuable strategies to help integrate these approaches into your practice quickly. These techniques include:

• Building partnership: Engage patients in their care by discussing their motivations and connecting these to the benefits of digital care.
• Setting expectations: Clearly explain what patients can expect from their care plan, emphasizing how digital tools enhance their treatment outside the clinic.
• Reflective listening: Address patient concerns through empathetic and concise responses, ensuring they feel heard and supported.

These approaches not only help patients understand the value of digital care but also foster enthusiasm for the benefits they offer.

3. Master Digital Care Solutions

Facility with digital tools is key to building patient confidence in the care you provide. Therefore, ongoing training is essential. We recommend starting with manageable, bite-sized training sessions like those offered in the MedBridge course “Getting Started with the MedBridge Home Exercise Program.”

Additionally, the MedBridge Digital Health Academy provides a comprehensive training library tailored to your needs. It includes:

• Digital health foundations: Courses designed to help you understand digital care, integrate it into your workflow, and enhance patient communications.
• Tips, tricks, and monthly challenges: Regular microlearning courses keep you up to date with the latest practices in digital patient engagement and behavioral psychology.
• Advanced training and certificates: For those ready to deepen their expertise, extensive programs in motivational interviewing, telehealth treatment, and more are available.

Digital Care Solutions: Saving Time While Improving Patient Engagement

A comprehensive digital care program offers many benefits. It empowers patients to actively participate in their own care, facilitates personalized exercise routines, improves clinician workflows, and enables ongoing monitoring and support from clinicians by giving them the ability to reach out to patients who are struggling, answer their questions, and check in via phone or telehealth. By incorporating strategies like the ones outlined here, you can enhance your practice with digital care solutions.