Emory Healthcare scores with an ‘Uber app’ for public transport at home
Emory Healthcare is continually evolving and innovating the care it provides. When it comes to home physical therapy providers, the health system was intrigued to understand how it could expand its outpatient service offerings.
THE PROBLEM
In recent years in particular, the pandemic has accelerated the way Emory thinks about off-site care, forcing the health system to reinvent not only how patients are diagnosed but also how they are treated nonoperatively.
“Although we have a number of physical therapy practices in or near our regional offices for our musculoskeletal practice, we have many patients who come from far away and are not as easily accessible for frequent rehabilitation,” said Dr. Scott Boden, chairman of the department of orthopedic surgery at Emory University School of Medicine.
‘For those patients: being able to Providing them with a home option was a way to maintain continuity of care within the healthcare system.
“In addition, many of our PT patients today are 65 and older, and while distance can be an issue, some find that traveling makes them uncomfortable or aggravates the pain they are trying to treat in the clinic,” he continued. “By having a PT provider in the home, the physical therapist can help improve the patient’s mobility in their own home setting — for example, by helping a patient climb stairs more efficiently.”
Given these factors, having an in-home physical therapy option would allow Emory to offer patients flexibility to continually improve patient health outcomes.
PROPOSAL
Many patients today will seek care at other clinics, outside of their own healthcare system, primarily due to shorter drive times and a preference for convenience over continuity of care.
“For healthcare systems, this is known as ‘referral leakage,’” Boden explains. “One of the ways health systems are trying to avoid this is by adding new PT locations to expand their geographic coverage. However, this may not be a practical option for everyone.
“In the provider Luna’s model, they offered the opportunity to keep these patients within the system with a highly differentiated service offering: home care,” he continued. “This Home care would include physical therapists with expertise in several specialties, including orthopedics, neurology, geriatrics, vestibular and postoperative care. The various conditions they can treat include ankle injuries, arthritis, knee pain, hip replacement, and spinal fusion.
Because Emory would credential the therapists and provide treatment protocols as needed, the program would allow the health care system to maintain quality and continuity of care, he added.
“Luna’s model also included a way to improve the performance of our outpatient PT practice by providing more capacity for patients requiring in-office PT,” Boden said. “This, in turn, would help reduce wait times at our busiest PT locations.”
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
Luna offered a home-based physical therapy program that allowed Emory to ensure quality and utilize Emory’s clinical protocols when needed. It connects therapists who want to work extra hours with patients who want home-based physical therapy.
“Our physicians offer this to patients who feel they live too far away for frequent clinic visits and to ensure continuity of care,” Boden explains. “The Luna app, which can be controlled by providers and patients, is simple, intuitive and straightforward and delivers a great patient-provider experience. In some ways, it’s like the Uber of physical therapy.”
RESULTS
Boden is pleased to be able to fill a need for patients who otherwise would not have accessed Emory’s PT services due to geographic distance. Since the pandemic, the way people view and use their health care has changed dramatically. It’s been a great accomplishment to be able to fill a need and provide a better solution for these patients, he said.
“Moreover, Luna has not only expanded our breadth of outpatient care services, it has also improved our adherence to value-based care,” he noted. “By advancing patient health outcomes and helping control costs, it keeps patients on their prescribed path and out of acute care settings.
“I have been working with Luna for two years and the patient satisfaction scores are excellent and the number of complaints about the service is minimal,” he said.
ADVICE FOR OTHERS
It is important to avoid cannibalizing patients who would receive physical therapy in the office, but this can be managed based on the protocols for which Patients are offered PT at home, Boden advised.
“We offer it to patients who have received a PT referral but have not scheduled in-person appointments, and patients who we know live too far away to travel regularly to one of our PT offices,” he said. “Additionally, healthcare systems may believe that using a home care provider will result in lower quality services.
“However, it is important to ensure that you credential the therapists so that they can provide your patients with the highest quality treatment plan,” he continued. “Second, healthcare systems may feel they can provide PT on their own. More patients seeking PT and expanding your network with the technology of an in-home PT provider, rather than building more physical locations, will likely have a positive impact on the patient care you can provide.”
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