Hospital Systems Launch into Digital MSK with MedBridge
New Pathways Offering Increases Access to MSK Care and Enables Patients to Remain In-Network
SEATTLE – July 10, 2024 – More than 100 million Americans experience musculoskeletal (MSK) pain annually, but the MSK patient journey has been broken for years. Access to quality care is difficult, costs across the board are too high, and capacity is strained. Patients regularly wind up being referred to surgical care, which often makes their original problem worse.1
MSK care is the highest category of healthcare spend in our country and arguably the most impactful — when patients lose their mobility, their overall health inevitably declines.2 And the problem is only going to get exponentially worse as America ages and the healthcare field continues to lose more providers than it trains. If we don’t innovate as an industry, our country faces a stark future: a sicker, less mobile population whose care is increasingly rationed.
There’s a clear and well-known solution to this problem. Study after study has shown that if physical therapy is inserted further upstream in the patient journey, and introduced more often into the overall journey, then patients get better faster, providers perform fewer interventions, and overall costs come down.3, 4, 5 Yet the unfortunate reality of MSK care today is that less than 15 percent of patients receive therapy for their MSK pain.6
That’s why MedBridge has launched Pathways, the first hybrid MSK solution purpose-built to allow MSK care providers to offer more patients easier access to high-quality, therapy-based, conservative care. We work with existing brick-and-mortar providers to extend the reach, capacity, and impact of their care.
Harnessing over ten years of physical therapy experience serving the top hospital systems and private practices in the U.S., MedBridge developed this new offering to give healthcare providers a software platform that does two key things: First, the new platform helps healthcare organizations of all sizes increase access to MSK care by providing clients with digital care programs to augment and extend their in-person capacity and better measure their clinical outcomes over time. Second, the platform allows providers to offer their patients a modern, consumer-friendly care experience that’s thoughtfully designed to drive high engagement with clinical assessments, expert-backed content, and quality exercises — all while keeping patients in-network.
“Physical therapy is immensely effective, yet getting patients from primary care offices to quality conservative MSK care has been way harder than it needs to be,” said Donovan Campbell, Chief Executive Officer at MedBridge. “That ends now. We’ve listened to our many hospital system customers who’ve been eager for a hybrid MSK platform that’s easy for their providers to prescribe, that’s exciting for their patients to use, and that works with their existing EHRs to keep their data and their patients in-system. I’m pleased to announce today that Pathways is that platform.”
“Pathways is helping us provide patients with every option for their care, in ways we couldn’t do before,” said Don Packard, Rehabilitation Director at Corewell Health, one of the hospital systems already using Pathways to treat patients. “This not only empowers patients but keeps us ahead of the competition and keeps patients in the Corewell Health System.”
Pathways is a provider-driven platform that helps hospital systems:
- Increase access and reach more patients who need MSK care, while opening up capacity and enabling patients to remain in-network
- Allow providers to extend their expertise outside of their clinics and offices without asking them to work more hours
- Improve patient engagement with — and adherence to — their therapy programs
- Increase ability to report and improve clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction
- Reduce total-system MSK care costs and unnecessary utilization by making conservative care the first and easiest choice for most patients
As a patient-centered experience, Pathways improves engagement and outcomes through:
- Holistic, evidence-based programs built to support a variety of conditions with specific education, exercise, and assessments that the treat mind, body, and spirit
- Ongoing reminders and encouragement to keep patients coming back, helping them adhere to their program for better outcomes
- The ability for patients to view their progress over time while providers can track outcomes and understand where they should prioritize additional education
- Artificial intelligence that supports patients as they go through their motion capture computer-vision assessments throughout each program
MedBridge has leveraged their experience providing more than 45 million home exercise programs to design Pathways to put patient and provider needs front and center. The company’s technology is purpose-built to keep hybrid physical therapy at the forefront of care and help organizations deliver superior patient outcomes across the MSK care spectrum.
The company plans to start announcing hospital systems utilizing Pathways in the coming weeks. Learn more or request a demo.
References:
1. https://academic.oup.com/ptj/article/101/1/pzaa201/5999910
2. https://bmcgeriatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12877-023-04106-7
3. https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.26.4.w532
4. https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-022-08255-0
5. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178295
6. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251336
