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December 19, 2024
Recently, Baystate Health hosted a webinar called, "Technology to Enhance the Cardiac Surgery Patient Experience" featuring Dr. Daniel Engelman, Medical Director of Heart, Vascular & Critical Units and ERAS Cardiac Society President, and Cheryl Crisafi, Cardiac Surgery Care Coordinator Nurse and ERAS Cardiac Society Clinical Coordinator, where they discussed how the institution has been leveraging informatics and patient engagement technology to elevate pre- and post- operative cardiac surgical care.
The webinar highlights the positive impact of patient engagement technology, which is described by Ms. Crisafi as a tool that creates “a partnership between patients and their healthcare providers.” Using a digital patient engagement application, such as SeamlessMD, providers can ensure that patients have access to information about their condition, medications, and a multitude of resources that are available for further support.
The cardiac care team at Baystate Health created custom-made cardiac surgery educational videos that contained pre-operative education, diabetes control information, discharge instructions, warfarin education, and exercises to do before and after surgery. They utilized SeamlessMD to ensure that these videos were integrated into the digital care program, so that patients would have access to these videos at key times during their preparation and recovery periods. The evidence-based education library ensures that patients have the tools and feel empowered with the knowledge to effectively self-manage from home.
During the webinar, Ms. Crisafi described how easily SeamlessMD guides patients through their surgical journey:
“The platform is interactive, it's an evidence-based education library and it starts to interact with our patients as soon as they book their surgery, and it stays with them for 30 days after their discharge. It's accessible via the web directly. They can download our app and put it on a tablet or on their phone. It doesn't take up a lot of tech savvy skills to use - it's very user-friendly.”
Patients using the application can complete interactive surveys, and the information collected from these surveys helps to determine patient-reported outcomes (PROs). This information provides valuable insights as to how a patient is progressing through their surgical journey, and allows for care teams to customize care and intervene if necessary.
The use of SeamlessMD has led to improved clinical outcomes including:
· ↓ 0.9 days LOS
· ↓ 72% Readmissions
· ↓ 69% Observation stays
· ↓ 13% ED visits
· ↓ 60% Discharge to SNF
As far as future goals go, Ms. Crisafi shared that the care team is currently working on to deliver a virtual prehabilitation program on the patient engagement platform that would provide patients with information on how to prepare the body and mind for surgery. The team also hopes to implement biometric monitoring to guide patients that might need additional treatment. Ms. Crisafi also highlighted the importance of multi-site collaboration as a major goal for the institution, as this would provide shared information and learning opportunities between organizations to drive continuous quality improvement.
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