April 29, 2024
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Recently Dr. Sabrena Noria, Surgical Director of Bariatric Surgery at Ohio State University’s (OSU) Wexner Medical Center, shared insights on how her center uses digital care journeys (SeamlessMD) to engage and track patients from referral through surgery - which has helped OSU reduce time to surgery by 1.5 months already.
To start: why look for a digital solution in the first place?
“With bariatric surgery, there's so many steps that a patient has to take. There are months and months of time between a patient submitting an application to actually getting surgery… because they need their psych eval, dietary eval, medical eval, all that kind of stuff.. because of this, obviously, patients do get confused… in order to streamline the process and mitigate delays… we created this virtual patient navigation platform… it's like your personal cruise director to get you to surgery,” explained Dr. Noria
Digital care journeys involve leveraging a patient’s own smartphone, tablet or computer to send patients reminders, deliver education and remotely monitor patient progress. Specifically for the process of getting patients to bariatric surgery, this means:
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You can watch the whole webinar here. Below are 4 lessons that Dr. Noria shared from OSU’s experience using this type of solution:
An analysis by Dr. Noria’s team presented at the 2022 Annual Meeting for the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) found that use of the digital platform “shortened time (to surgery) by about 1 and a half months - which when you're talking about a 6 month span is no small feat.”
Since then, a more recent analysis at OSU “showed it (time to surgery) shortened by about, you know, close to 3 months. I think that we've doubled the time now… we know that when you engage with this, you get to surgery faster… because I think it's like your own personal checklist.”
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It is a fairly straightforward business case to hospital leadership because each additional bariatric surgery case provides $6,000 to $8,000 in additional profit for a typical health system.
As Dr. Noria shared: “the argument that you make to the financial leadership in your institution is that this application can get patients to the OR faster… so the more patients you can get in, the more you can get done… It's really that simple.”
She went on to explain that the process for getting a patient to bariatric surgery is complex and requires a lot of resources, unlike a more simple procedure (e.g. gallbladder surgery). OSU has found that digital care journeys can significantly reduce time and resources needed for the pre-surgery process.
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Although the to-do lists keep patients aware of what to do, part of the secret sauce in how digital care journeys are designed is providing just-in-time explainers for why patients should complete a milestone requirement.
As Dr. Noria explains:
“When the app asks them, have you completed this appointment, I think that allows them to get into the materials that have been developed and keeps them motivated… Why do I have to have protein? What's the point of hydration? … All those little things that we take for granted because this is what we (providers) do day in and day out is new for patients. And to have that at their fingertips, I think, keeps them engaged. So I think the app itself, the list itself, it just keeps them on track - but I think the teaching materials keeps them engaged.”
Referencing research her team published in Obesity Surgery, Dr. Noria explained how her team studied the usability of the platform with their patients, finding that usability scores were “in the 97th percentile, which obviously is very highly usable.” on the validated System Usability Scale (SUS).
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Recently Dr. Sabrena Noria, Surgical Director of Bariatric Surgery at Ohio State University’s (OSU) Wexner Medical Center, shared insights on how her center uses digital care journeys (SeamlessMD) to engage and track patients from referral through surgery - which has helped OSU reduce time to surgery by 1.5 months already.
To start: why look for a digital solution in the first place?
“With bariatric surgery, there's so many steps that a patient has to take. There are months and months of time between a patient submitting an application to actually getting surgery… because they need their psych eval, dietary eval, medical eval, all that kind of stuff.. because of this, obviously, patients do get confused… in order to streamline the process and mitigate delays… we created this virtual patient navigation platform… it's like your personal cruise director to get you to surgery,” explained Dr. Noria
Digital care journeys involve leveraging a patient’s own smartphone, tablet or computer to send patients reminders, deliver education and remotely monitor patient progress. Specifically for the process of getting patients to bariatric surgery, this means:
You can watch the whole webinar here. Below are 4 lessons that Dr. Noria shared from OSU’s experience using this type of solution:
An analysis by Dr. Noria’s team presented at the 2022 Annual Meeting for the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) found that use of the digital platform “shortened time (to surgery) by about 1 and a half months - which when you're talking about a 6 month span is no small feat.”
Since then, a more recent analysis at OSU “showed it (time to surgery) shortened by about, you know, close to 3 months. I think that we've doubled the time now… we know that when you engage with this, you get to surgery faster… because I think it's like your own personal checklist.”
It is a fairly straightforward business case to hospital leadership because each additional bariatric surgery case provides $6,000 to $8,000 in additional profit for a typical health system.
As Dr. Noria shared: “the argument that you make to the financial leadership in your institution is that this application can get patients to the OR faster… so the more patients you can get in, the more you can get done… It's really that simple.”
She went on to explain that the process for getting a patient to bariatric surgery is complex and requires a lot of resources, unlike a more simple procedure (e.g. gallbladder surgery). OSU has found that digital care journeys can significantly reduce time and resources needed for the pre-surgery process.
Although the to-do lists keep patients aware of what to do, part of the secret sauce in how digital care journeys are designed is providing just-in-time explainers for why patients should complete a milestone requirement.
As Dr. Noria explains:
“When the app asks them, have you completed this appointment, I think that allows them to get into the materials that have been developed and keeps them motivated… Why do I have to have protein? What's the point of hydration? … All those little things that we take for granted because this is what we (providers) do day in and day out is new for patients. And to have that at their fingertips, I think, keeps them engaged. So I think the app itself, the list itself, it just keeps them on track - but I think the teaching materials keeps them engaged.”
Referencing research her team published in Obesity Surgery, Dr. Noria explained how her team studied the usability of the platform with their patients, finding that usability scores were “in the 97th percentile, which obviously is very highly usable.” on the validated System Usability Scale (SUS).
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