As the Baby Boomers grow older, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons predicts that knee replacements will increase by 673 percent and hip replacements will grow by 174 percent.
Joint replacement surgery is one of Medicare’s biggest expenses. The procedure also has a high hospital readmission rate.
Preventice and VOX Telehealth have teamed up to cut costs through patient education. Their first entry into the market, the VOX OrthoCare Program, will specifically address ways to educate patients both before and after joint replacement surgery.
VOX Telehealth provides the content for OrthoCare while Preventice provides clinical monitoring and recovery. Starting before the surgical procedure, OrthoCare will teach patients what to expect in the days following the replacement.
After the procedure, the solution will help patients to both understand and follow their recovery plans. Hospitals hope that delivering quick access to patient support tools will reduce post-surgical complications and hospital readmissions.
“By creating a customizable, mobile environment for the OrthoCare Program, we are helping to close the patient engagement gap by reaching a significant population of surgical patients with the right information and tools, at the right time during the course of their treatment,” stated Jon Otterstatter, Preventice’s co-founder, president and CEO.
VOX OrthoCare enables patient education and monitoring using multiple devices. Patients can initiate contact with their physicians if they have questions, and clinicians can contact patients if monitoring suggests that greater compliance is needed.
Physicians can create customized recovery plans as well as deliver content and educational videos. According to VOX, their solutions deliver far better results than sending home a couple of brochures with the patient.
Preventice creates devices that come with wearable sensors for patients. In addition to capturing physiological data and sending it to a central monitoring station, the devices can provide medication alerts and other needed services.
Preventice and VOX TeleHealth plan to roll out VOX OrthoCare this summer at St. Mary’s Hospital in Richmond, Va. St. Mary’s is part of the Bon Secours Health System, which handles over 2,000 joint replacement procedures annually.
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
