Digital Transformation in Healthcare: Tomer Shussman of OneStep On How Medical Practices Can Use Digital Transformation To Provide Better Care
An Interview With David McNeil
It is so easy to fear putting things to the test, but I think those are the best learning experiences, and in retrospect also the funniest moments of my career.
As part of our series about “Medical Practices Can Use Digital Transformation To Provide Better Care”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tomer Shussman.
Tomer Shussman is a Co-Founder and CEO of OneStep, a physical therapy platform that helps people move healthier by providing real-life motion feedback that streamlines physical therapy into day-to-day life. He is an alumnus of the IDF’s elite Talpiot program, where he served as a researcher and as the program’s Chief Instructor and Deputy Commander. He holds a B.Sc in Physics and Mathematics from the Hebrew University and an M.Sc in Physics from Tel Aviv University and is currently applying his professional expertise to create a positive impact by working with leading providers across the US and UK to offer the optimal recovery journey for each patient.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I am a physicist in training and spent many years working on sensor technology. My co-founders and I are good friends and were educated in the Talpiot program, an elite high-tech division of the Israeli Defense Forces, where we worked together for many years. I also served as the Chief Instructor of the program and managed the 150 cadets and 10 staff members, which was a fascinating leadership experience for me. After we finished our military service, my co-founders and I knew we wanted to use our scientific and technical experience to create something revolutionary that would benefit the well-being of others, and we had a strong hunch that everyday sensors could be used to improve people’s health.
Initially, we set out to create an app that can detect strokes by measuring how people walk. Many people don’t know this, but no two people walk the same way. Several parameters such as speed, step rate, stride length, and more, are taken into account when analyzing how we walk, which is what is also oftentimes referred to as our ‘gait.’ For years, gait has been a subject of interest for researchers, psychologists, sociologists, and physical therapists. More recently, gait has been studied scientifically and is now used as an indicator to assess and treat individuals with conditions affecting their mobility and other functions. Until recently, gait could only be professionally measured and monitored in the setup of a gait lab.
What we developed was essentially a new technology that allowed us to accurately measure and assess gait by turning any smartphone into a motion analysis lab that runs 24/7. We then realized that there was — and still is — a huge need for accurate feedback in many areas of medicine, the most significant one being physical therapy. Motion is a skill — one that requires continued practice — and meaningful feedback. Regaining it after an accident or an injury is particularly difficult, and unfortunately, most patients are alone in their recovery. Sure, they get a weekly hour at the clinic with a therapist, but what do they do back at home? This is how OneStep came to be. Our approach (and name) emerged from the belief that continued practice should fit seamlessly into your day-to-day life — and small, consistent, daily actions result in big outcomes for people’s recovery. We use our technology to provide patients with ongoing feedback that puts them in control over their recovery and informs them of their ongoing progress whenever they want, and to equips providers and therapists with around-the-clock clinical evidence that allows them to not only make better clinical decisions, but also be there for their patients all the time in a very efficient way.
Can you share the most interesting or most exciting story that has happened to you since you began at your company?
Wow, I’ve had so many… I think that the most interesting, intense, and funny stories of my career happened when we just “got out there” and tested our efforts in real world situations. When the rubber meets the road, you learn so much. For example, when we just started OneStep, we decided to launch an informal study to help us understand our target audience. We picked the location — a small clinic in Israel; we built a very ‘lean’ app that periodically collected motion data from the smartphone; we built a sales pitch on how to convince people to try it for free; we had a whole protocol that explained how to install it, how to operate it, and more; in theory, we were as prepared as one could be.
When we kicked it off, it turned out to be a disaster. We had initially started off as a team of 3 with clear areas of responsibility, but suddenly there was a huge influx of people applying, too many for us to handle. Each of us was so occupied with our predefined ‘responsibility’ that we weren’t available to do our part, and we found ourselves improvising. A large majority of the prospects had trouble downloading our ‘lean’ app, the rest didn’t understand how to use it. It was as hectic as it could be, and within just a few days we all felt like we had run a marathon. We went to a nearby bar, sat there silently for what seemed like hours, and just drank our beer without saying a word. Today, this is one of our funniest memories. But this also taught us so many things about what could go wrong, what’s not working, and how to better prepare and improve. We thought we knew everything, and then everything went wrong.
It is so easy to fear putting things to the test, but I think those are the best learning experiences, and in retrospect also the funniest moments of my career.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
We are constantly working to improve our platform to help people move better and help providers treat better. These days, our science team is working on increasing the number of motion parameters that can be learned by simply placing one’s smartphone in their pocket, and integrating that into our service. We recently announced that our platform supports fall risk detection, where we help providers identify trends in movement that indicate that a certain patient is more prone to falling over and allow them to offer preventative care that addresses this major concern. In addition, while we started out with gait, we are now working to introduce new parameters to reflect accurate upper-extremity measurements without requiring patients to film a video of themselves or purchase any wearables, but rather relying on the smartphones’ sensors to tell the patient’s clinical “story” in the most accurate way possible.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview about Digital Transformation in Healthcare. I am particularly passionate about this topic because my work focuses on how practices can streamline processes to better serve their patients. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly Digital Transformation means? On a practical level what does it look like for a medical practice to engage in a digital transformation?
The way I see it, digital transformation is like riding a bicycle. If we think about human beings for a second, the first thing we learned how to do in the realm of motion is walk, then run, then dance, etc. At some point, we decided that we needed a means of covering a larger distance in less time, so we invented a device that would let us move from point A to point B much faster, without which we couldn’t get by. The bicycle allowed us to move more efficiently. Digital Transformation works in the same way. It essentially means taking processes that are mechanical in nature and introducing technology in the form of digital solutions that improves not only the speed of these processes but also their quality.
Until recently, I think medical practices did not feel the urgency to adopt digital solutions, because it was many people’s core belief that physical therapy in fact requires a physical encounter. I think that COVID changed this and taught practitioners that with social distancing they needed to adopt solutions that would allow for treatment to continue remotely, or under conditions that are not the clinic’s walls. Since COVID we have seen a rise in interest when it comes to adopting digital solutions. On a practical level, it means clinics are looking to integrate new technologies that would allow them to keep track of the patients’ progress over time, treat patients remotely via online communication tools, such as Zoom, and be able to create effective treatment plans that will support the patients once they are back home.
What are the specific pain points that digital transformation can help address in a medical practice?
The ability to monitor patients outside the clinic walls is probably the most important aspect of it. Without the proper digital technology, it is impossible for clinicians to be able to monitor their patients’ progress once they leave the clinic, and draw clinical insights from the patient’s day-to-day life. This means that without adopting a suitable technological solution, the only way to assess the patient’s progress is done intermittently and under lab conditions. Obviously, when a patient comes for an appointment in the clinic, they are going to move in a much more conscious way. But the real “gem” lies in understanding the patient’s motion when they are not being observed. Technology can help clinicians decipher this “unconscious” movement, and offer corrective measures to expedite recovery.
Another pain point that digital transformation can address is communicating effectively with patients. Instead of limiting communication only to clinic visitations of phone calls, digital technology offers care providers the option to drop each other a quick line via chat or engage in a video call to offer better ongoing treatment.
What are the obstacles that prevent a medical practice from engaging in a digital transformation?
I think that some practices think that introducing a digital solution into their practice can require a lot of work in the form of protocols, updating methodologies, and conducting training in a way that is cumbersome or too complicated. For others its selecting the right solution for their practice and I think that the price point is also a factor for practices.
Managing a healthcare facility is more challenging than it has ever been. Based on your experience or research, can you please share with our readers a few examples of how digital transformation can help a medical practice to provide better care? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
I think digital transformation adoption can greatly improve not only the medical staff’s efficiency but also empower them to make better, more evidence-based decisions. One of our patients recently told us that he attended multiple physical therapy sessions and was consistently misdiagnosed and therefore the treatment protocols he was assigned did not contribute to this recovery. At OneStep, we have collected and analyzed more than a million steps, and work with top-class physical therapists to infer meaning from the walking patterns we observe to offer meaningful data to practitioners. According to this patient, using OneStep has changed their life for the better. I think that the ability to monitor patients movement in the natural environment allows care providers to identify problematic areas by taking a look at the gathered data, more easily identify the root cause of aches, pains and issues in mobility and adequately craft a recovery program that addresses these areas more efficiently.
Another thing that we see with the patients that use OneStep is that the digital tools contribute to a strong patient-therapist connection. Many of our users develop an ongoing strong personal bond with their therapist, because the therapist is always within reach via chat/video call. This not only contributes to an improved patient experience but also greatly increases the PTs sense of accomplishment, pride and involvement in the journey which they find very rewarding. Many of our patients stay in touch after completing their course of recovery, and we’ve even had a patient whose goal was to go hiking send us a photo from the top of the mountain!
Can you share a few examples of how digital interactions or digital intake processes can help create a frictionless patient experience and increase access for patients?
A frictionless patient experience requires collecting the right data, and mostly managing that data in a way that provides a coherent clinical representation of the patient’s condition at every single point in time. When we talk about collecting data, it can be as simple as keeping the patient’s contact details on hand, to medical records, administering and storing patient reported outcomes (this is typically collected in the form of functional questionnaires such as the PSFS), and also accurately assessing this motion. Not to mention the need to keep an entire log of the treatment, insurance details, administered protocols, and the actual assessments. There’s a lot of data available, even a single missing piece of data can change the course of the recovery. This is why, we make sure that providers can effectively capture, maintain and organize this data in a way that helps them, and doesn’t work against them by taking up their time with administrative tasks. Another aspect to remember is the need for all this data to successfully integrate with other systems, such as EMR, which we also provide an integration for.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Our website offers a lot of information about what we do. We have blog posts coming out every week on clinical topics, physical therapy and using and incorporating digital tools into the practice of physical therapy. We also have a Linkedin page where you can learn about our corporate news and exciting new announcements, such as new technological features, and partnerships, and a Facebook page.
This was truly meaningful! Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise!
About The Interviewer: David McNeil is the President of PatientPop, a Tebra company, a market leader in practice growth technology. McNeil is highly committed to helping the company build a modern go-to-market organization that delivers great value to practices in a time of rapid change in healthcare. McNeil’s business insights have been featured in publications such as Medical Economics and Los Angeles Business Journal.
