Transforming Access to Care with Digital Care Management
In outpatient rehabilitation, maintaining patient engagement between clinic visits is an ongoing challenge. High drop-off rates, inconsistent adherence to home exercise programs, and limited follow-up opportunities can lead to poor patient outcomes. Digital care management offers you a solution by using digital health tools to support ongoing communication. This allows you to monitor your patient’s progress, provide timely interventions, and ensure adherence to treatment plans.
For rehabilitation teams, these tools can be a game-changer for enhancing patient care. By integrating digital care management into your practice, you can improve continuity of care by tracking progress, adjusting treatments, and keeping patients engaged throughout their recovery.
In this article, we’ll explore how digital care management works, its benefits, and how you can integrate these strategies into your practice to optimize care delivery.
Why choose digital care management?
Improved patient engagement and adherence
One of the biggest challenges in rehabilitation is ensuring that patients remain engaged with their exercise programs between visits. This lack of engagement is reflected in non-adherence rates, with exercise compliance in physical therapy patients ranging from 56 to 70 percent.1 Non-adherence not only delays recovery but may also lead to worse long-term outcomes.
This is where digital care management can be an effective solution to bridge the gap between clinic visits and home-based care. By using digital tools such as mobile applications and home exercise programs, you can provide patients with easy access to their care plans, helping them stay on track. These tools often include reminders, video tutorials, and progress tracking, making it easier for patients to stay engaged.
To put it into perspective, patients with musculoskeletal conditions who received an app-based home exercise program reported a 20 percent increase in exercise adherence.2 Increased adherence translates into better outcomes, as patients are more likely to follow through on their treatment plans and reach their recovery goals.
Enhanced communication between patients and providers
With digital care management, you can maintain open lines of communication with your patients outside of scheduled visits. For example, if a patient experiences increased pain or has concerns about their recovery, they can easily notify you through secure messaging. You can then promptly provide guidance or make modifications to their care plan. This level of real-time interaction helps address minor issues before they escalate into larger problems.
Digital care facilitates ongoing communication, improving the quality of patient care and allowing for early intervention when necessary. For healthcare providers in outpatient settings—like physical therapy clinics, this continuous communication ensures that patients receive support not only during their clinic visits but also throughout their recovery at home.
Cost reduction and improved efficiency
Implementing digital care management doesn’t just improve patient care—it also helps reduce costs for both your practice and the broader healthcare system. Remote monitoring and virtual consultations enable early interventions that can help avoid unnecessary hospital readmissions or emergency room visits. By catching issues early on, you can reduce the need for costly treatments in the future.
In addition, digital care tools streamline administrative workflows. Automated systems for tracking patient progress, monitoring adherence, and collecting feedback reduce time spent on administrative tasks, allowing you to focus more on patient care.
Steps to successfully manage digital care
Implementing digital care management requires a strategic approach to ensure that both clinicians and patients benefit from the tools being used. Here are some actionable steps to help you get started:
Set clear goals
Start by defining your primary objectives with digital care management. This could be improving patient retention, reducing cancellations, or increasing adherence to home exercise programs. Setting measurable goals—such as lowering non-adherence rates by 10% over the next quarter—will give you clear benchmarks to assess your progress. Having well-defined goals ensures that both you and your patients are aligned on the expected outcomes, keeping the focus on improving the quality of care.
Choose the right tools
Not all digital tools are created equal, so it’s important to choose those that align with your practice’s needs and workflow. Tools like telehealth platforms, home exercise program (HEP) builders, and even mobile applications can significantly improve digital patient engagement.
When selecting tools for your practice, consider platforms that offer features like real-time communication, remote monitoring, and exercise tracking to keep your patients actively involved in their treatment plans.
Monitor and adjust
Regularly monitoring patient progress through analytics tools is essential to the success of digital care management, as it provides real-time insights into how well patients are adhering to their treatment plans and progressing toward their goals.
The data collected will enable you to identify areas for improvement in both the patient’s care plan and your strategy. For example, if engagement rates drop, you can adjust communication frequency or offer additional support resources, such as patient education. Consistently tracking outcomes will allow you to refine your approach and optimize the patient experience, helping them stay on track with their treatment plans and achieve better results.
Equip yourself and your staff
Whether you’re working as an individual or within a larger organization, it’s important that everyone involved is confident in using the technology. Taking the time to familiarize yourself with the digital tools, and providing training for any staff or colleagues who will be using them, is key to a smooth implementation.
This can include holding training sessions, offering ongoing support, or incorporating continuing education opportunities to stay updated on the latest advancements and best practices in digital care management. When both you and your team are well-versed in the technology, you’ll be better positioned to support patients and fully leverage the tools at your disposal.
5 digital tools to include in your practice
Choosing the right tools is just as important as knowing how to use them. To provide smarter, comprehensive care, you need integrated digital tools that enhance patient engagement, allow for timely interventions, and ensure continuity of care. These tools help you streamline workflows and improve outcomes by keeping patients engaged both in and out of the clinic. Let’s take a look at which tools can help you deliver optimal care across every stage of your patients’ journey.
1. Remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM)
Remote therapeutic monitoring allows you to stay connected with patients between visits by activating, monitoring, and tracking their adherence to treatment plans. Studies have shown that patients with musculoskeletal conditions who were remotely monitored had 26% greater adherence to their exercise programs compared to those who were not.3 With real-time data collection, patient reminders, and detailed reports, RTM helps ensure continuous engagement throughout your patient’s care journey. This not only improves patient outcomes but also provides essential data for RTM billing, helping you keep patients engaged and improving their episode of care.
2. Home exercise programs (HEPs)
Digital home exercise programs ensure that your patients continue their rehabilitation outside of the clinic. By offering easy-to-follow instructions, video tutorials, and progress tracking, you’ll see higher adherence to prescribed exercises, which directly leads to better recovery outcomes. Plus, you can remotely monitor your patients’ progress and adjust treatments as necessary, making HEPs an invaluable tool in managing patient care.
3. Patient education
Providing clear, accessible patient education helps your patients understand their conditions and treatment plans, empowering them to take an active role in their recovery. Digital patient education materials, such as videos and handouts, are easily shared with both patients and their caregivers, reinforcing concepts at home and creating a supportive environment for recovery.
4. Mobile apps
Patient mobile apps are transforming healthcare by giving patients easy access to treatment plans anytime, anywhere. These tools keep your patients engaged, help them track their progress, send reminders, and allow seamless communication with your care team. The result? Better adherence and improved outcomes.
5. Motion Capture
Motion capture technology provides real-time analysis of patient movement using AI and computer vision. This allows you to remotely assess range of motion and movement patterns, enabling data-driven care decisions without in-person visits.
For digital care management, motion capture delivers deeper insights into patient progress, helping clinicians tailor rehabilitation programs and make timely adjustments. Integrated with tools like RTM, it supports a more comprehensive and personalized approach to musculoskeletal care.
Embrace the future of care with digital management
Ready to elevate your practice with digital care management? Whether you’re a solo clinician, run a small business, or work within a larger organization, Medbridge offers the tools you need to deliver exceptional patient care while improving efficiency. Browse our plans to find the perfect solution for your practice and start transforming outcomes today!
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