Distinguishing Your O&P Practice

Published in Orthotics & Prosthetics on May 26, 2022

By Todd Eagen, Late President, OPGA

Healthcare is increasingly moving to outcomes-based care models which require O&P clinicians to effectively communicate patient outcomes. Tomorrow’s clinicians should prepare for refined and repeatable articulation of their impact on patient outcomes with referral sources, patients, and payers. 

Current Discussions on Outcomes

O&P patient outcomes have been talked about a lot. But what has actually been done that is meaningful to the individual clinic, patient, healthcare system, and payer? Recent articles relating to the profession’s data gaps have all suggested we need to do something, but what?

Much of the discussion has centered on deciding what should be measured, only to resign to the idea that we should simply measure anything as a start. This haphazard approach wastes precious time and energy—especially when a game plan has already been laid out for us.

Solutions Already Exist

A patient outcomes management tool, like Össur’s PRO App (Prosthetic Rehabilitation Outcomes Application), that supports clinicians and O&P organizations in the administration, storing, and analysis of patient outcomes is ideal. It benefits your practice in patient management, clinical decision making, and communication with referral sources.

A functional mobility outcomes tool that relies on both clinical and patient-reported measures can provide the following:

Benefits of a Functional Mobility Outcomes Tool

• Advance patient engagement, resulting in better individual outcomes and overall retention while maximizing medical justification through an automated reporting structure.
• Expedite patient prosthetic knowledge and effective communication through reporting that demonstrates changes in mobility, shows patient progression/digression, and provides objective patient documentation.
• Make more informed decisions to improve clinical protocols with data to understand what clinical care pathways are working better than others, resulting in better outcomes, while improving clinical operations and efficiencies.
• Enhance referral source communications and increase value to other healthcare professionals by focusing the narrative on positive patient outcomes, as opposed to product or price. 

Improving the Patient Experience and Clinic Performance

Utilization of a validated outcomes tool allows you to easily collect patient outcome measures to monitor and improve the patient’s experience and clinical practice performance.  In addition, the rich data provides the opportunity to distinguish your business and provide greater value to key stakeholders and referral sources.

This article was originally featured in the VGM Playbook: Growing Your Business With Data and Technology. To read more articles like this, download your copy of the playbook today! 

TAGS

1. data
2. operations
3. orthotics and prosthetics
4. outcomes
5. technology