At the 21st Annual Becker's ASC Conference in Chicago on Oct. 25, Michael Lilly, director of population health solutions of Skylight Healthcare Systems and Alan Beyer, MD, executive medical director of Hoag Orthopedic Services, located in Irvine, Calif., discussed how patient engagement technology and patient-reported status can help improve patient outcomes, as well as help hospitals identify areas in need of improvement.
Skylight Healthcare System's CareNavigator is an interactive patient care system platform that follows and engages with patients from pre-admission, during the hospital stay and after discharge. The system gives customized communication specific to the patient's condition and treatment, and provides educational content to best prepare patients for positive outcomes.
Mr. Lilly and Dr. Beyer demonstrated the potential benefits of engaging with this type of service through a description of the Skylight Healthcare Systems' program and Hoag Orthopedic Institute's adoption of it. Key benefits from the discussion are listed below.
- Patients have access to valuable educational material. CareNavigator has a strict, well-defined process that is great for the patient and also collects clinical and qualitative information that is impactful to the hospital. Patients get valuable educational material to help them prepare for surgery, such as videos of their surgeon discussing their surgery, as well as the ability to send messages and requests to the appropriate departments.
- Healthcare providers attain information about the patient to build the best solution of care. Real-time feedback from the Skylight system can help hospitals improve daily operations and achieve long-term goals.
"The real takeaway is that if you really engage your patients with a meaningful, personal experience, in turn they will give you information that will be impactful to your organization. The program captures metrics related to experience, clinical quality, operations and compliance and identifies opportunity for the patient," Mr. Lilly said. - The system produces measurable outcomes. Through the completing of patient surveys, the hospital can see measurable outcomes of the treatment they provided, including medical outcomes, quality of life, pain level, patient experience and compliance with post-operation instructions.
Dr. Beyer gave positive testimony to how Skylight's CareNavigator system provided physicians at Hoag Orthopedic Institute with patient reported outcomes that allowed physicians and surgeons to develop and peer review best practices and processes.
"We wanted to collect specific data, like how long it took to recover from surgery and get back to daily life, and how patients rated the operation. Cost data is important but it's really about learning about quality. We wanted to collect functional outcomes data to support the argument that quality may cost more but ultimately it's the best option," Dr. Beyer said.