Patient Engagement & Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) highlights from the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) 2019 Annual Meeting

Patient engagement and PROs in Cardiac Surgery were front and center at AATS 2019. Here are a few highlights!

Dr. Louis Perrault (Montreal Heart Institute) presented on using Patient Engagement & PRO Technology to drive Multi-Center, Collaborative Quality Improvement

On Sat May 4, 2019, as part of the opening session on Cardiac ERAS, Dr. Louis Perrault, Chief of Cardiac Surgery at the Montreal Heart Institute, delivered a podium presentation on the multi-center efforts of the cardiac surgery programs at Montreal Heart Institute, Baystate Health and Prairie Heart Institute in using SeamlessMD for patient engagement, PRO data collection and multi-center quality improvement.

Watch the presentation below:

Highlights from Dr. Perrault’s presentation included:

• Evidence on how cardiac centers have used SeamlessMD to reduce LOS by 1 day, 30-day readmissions by 21%-45% and discharge to SNF by 25% to 64%
• How Montreal, Baystate and Prairie used SeamlessMD to standardize pathways and PRO data collection across all 3 centers
• How the 3 centers created multi-center benchmarking dashboards on SeamlessMD to benchmark performance on measures such as pain, anxiety, early post-op mobilization, incentive spirometry use, etc.
• How higher performing centers on various measures (e.g. early mobilization) were identified and subsequently how best practices (e.g. whiteboard tracking systems to improve early mobilization) were disseminated and adopted by lower performing centers

Click here to read the AATS Abstract for Dr. Perrault’s presentation.

Click here for more detail on how SeamlessMD facilitates these Multi-Center PRO Collaboratives

Cheryl Crisafi (Baystate Health) presented on using Patient Engagement Technology to prevent readmissions for Cardiac Surgery patients

On May 4, 2019, Cheryl Crisafi (Nurse Coordinator for Heart & Vascular Program, Baystate Health), delivered a Poster Presentation on Baystate Health’s experience using SeamlessMD to deliver ERAS education, track patient compliance with ERAS protocols, collect PROs and monitor patients to prevent readmissions - including demonstrating a 25% reduction in 30-day readmissions.

On May 6, 2019, in a session called “Patient Safety: The Team Approach”, Cheryl delivered a podium presentation on the topic: “Preventing readmissions, the critical role of the nurse".

In addition to a number of other strategies Cheryl and the Baystate cardiac surgery nursing team have employed for readmission prevention, Cheryl spoke about her program’s use of patient engagement technology to:

• Send reminders to optimize patients for surgery
• Make patient education accessible 24/7 from a patient’s computer, smartphone or tablet
• Set clear expectations for each day in post-op recovery
• Empower patients to track post-op recovery
• Enable providers to monitor patients post-op and catch complications earlier

The Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) Cardiac Society announced publication of new ERAS Guidelines for Cardiac Surgery - including recommending the use of Patient Engagement Technology

At AATS 2019, the ERAS Cardiac Society announced the publication of their first guidelines in JAMA Surgery: “Guidelines for Perioperative Care: Enhanced Recovery After Surgery Society Recommendations”. Endorsed by the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS®) Society, these guidelines provide the first-ever evidence-based protocols for enhanced recovery after cardiac surgery.

The ERAS Cardiac Society guidelines included a recommendation for: “Patient engagement tools, including online/application- based systems to promote education, compliance, and patient-reported outcomes.”

Click here to read the guidelines in JAMA.

Interested in learning how Cardiac Centers are using Patient Engagement Technology to improve outcomes and deliver Cardiac ERAS protocols?

Contact us at info@seamlessmd and we would be happy to share our experiences!