How Orton hospital reduced its orthopaedic patients’ post-operative visits by 20% with the BuddyCare Platform
CASE STUDY
Orton and Buddy Healthcare collaboration
Orton hospital, based in Finland, recognised the shift to value-based care and identified several areas of improvement that could be solved using health technology. Orton partnered with Buddy Healthcare in 2017 when the hospital was looking for a solution to:- digitise and automate knee and hip surgery patients' communication and education,
- automate and increase PROMs and PREMs collection and response rates,
- improve its remote patient services with enhanced recovery after surgery.
Key results with the BuddyCare platform
- Digitally guided patients had 20% fewer postoperative visits to Orton's clinic. Patients could send wound images through secure messaging for the orthopaedic nurse's evaluation instead of visiting the hospital.
- Orton brought the average number of phone calls down to just two per digitally-guided patient during the entire perioperative care pathway.
- Increased response rates: PROMs questionnaire 90%, PREMs questionnaire 87%.
- 89% of the hip and knee patients who were offered the mobile application chose digital patient guidance instead of traditional paper-based guidance consisting of phone calls and mailings.
- Orthopaedic patients using the mobile application rated the digitised care pathways with 4,5/5.
Digital perioperative care of the orthopaedic patient
The goal of the collaboration was to digitise orthopaedic patients' communication, improve patient satisfaction, and increase PROs and patient satisfaction measurement through the platform. Orton also sought to improve operational efficiencies by eliminating unnecessary post-operative visits and phone calls.
Patients undergoing knee and hip replacement procedures started receiving all pre and postoperative care instructions, pre-assessment forms, medication and nutritional instructions, appointment and task reminders, prehabilitation and rehabilitation instructions, pain meter and patient questionnaires (PROMs, PREMs) automatically through Orton's white-label mobile application.
While orthopaedic patients used the mobile app, the orthopaedic nurse monitored the patients' progress remotely with the BuddyCare Clinical Dashboard. Orton's nurse communicated with patients mostly through secure messaging, with patients able to send questions or surgery wound images through digitised and secure communication in their mobile app.
Electronic pre-assessment forms that were collected digitally were available for the care personnel before the patient arrived for the procedure. The digitally-guided patients had already submitted the form in advance through the app. Traditionally guided patients would bring the paper version of the pre-assessment forms to the clinic on the operation day, and the secretary needed to scan the paper form.
I love to use the messaging feature with my patients. My patients are often sending me photos of their wounds for my evaluation. I provide instructions based on the photos without a need to describe it on the phone or make a visit to our hospital.
- Orthopaedic nurse
Enhanced recovery after surgery: The orthopaedic PROMs questionnaire response rate is 90%
Orton automated its rehabilitation and postoperative care instruction delivery as well as PROMs questionnaire collection with the BuddyCare platform.
Patients attending hip or knee replacement surgeries submitted either the Oxford Hip Score (OHS) or the Oxford Knee Score (OKS) questionnaires digitally from their mobile devices. Digital collection of the questionnaires was very effective as of the patients assigned to the digital care pathway, 90% submitted their PROMs questionnaire, and 87% of the patients submitted their patient experience feedback questionnaire.
I feel I was taken very good care of when using the BuddyCare app as I could easily send messages to the nurse whenever I had questions in my mind.
The app created a feeling of safety for me.
- Orthopaedic surgery patient who used the BuddyCare app
Implemented Care Pathways with the BuddyCare Platform
- Hip joint replacement
- Knee joint replacement
- Back to the fitness treatment path
- Knee fitness treatment path
- Sports medicine care path