Next level: app tracking patient wellness could reduce patient hospital visits and costs
We’ve seen the plethora of apps that track nutrition and symptoms out there. But do any of these apps alleviate patient needs for frequent hospital or doctor visits? How many of them offer preventative assistance? For someone with a chronic disease, too many doctor visits can often push patients to “only surface when they’re in trouble.” As a result, symptoms often go undocumented.
What if there was a way to reduce those doctor and hospital visits while still tracking symptoms? Can we find an effective way to help manage a chronic disease that reduces costs to the patients, hospitals, and insurances companies? Well, Dr. Lawrence Kosinski has developed just that.
Project Sonar was developed to move physicians from a dependency on a fee-for-service practice towards a value-based practice. It was tested to track wellness in a group of 185 patients. Patient engagement increased from 27% up to 80%, which sustained for 20 months. Also, there was up to a 41% decrease in total costs over this time period. Some of the key engagement features for patients using Project Sonar include:
- Initial risk assessment
- Enrollment in a web-based communication platform
- Proactive touch points at least once a month; more frequently as needed
- Continuous care pathway refinement due to development of care management algorithms
- Physician intervention before patients realize they need care
If patients are able to communicate with their physicians more frequently, the physicians can often predict treatment failure and target better therapies based on symptoms. It also allows doctors to collect more data, which can change the course of treatment for patients with chronic diseases.
According to a report by Kosinski, chronic diseases consume 83% of total US health spending. And, virtually all (99%) of Medicare’s costs are for beneficiaries with at least one chronic condition.1 Imagine the seismic shift apps of this nature could have for overall patient healthcare and the amount of money spent on healthcare.
Putting patients first seems to be the first thought in technologies of this sort. And at Patients & Purpose, we strive to do that in the same way, by making patients better communicators, better managers of their treatments, and better advocates for their health. Project Sonar is another piece of evidence that showcases how well patients respond to tools that help them manage their disease.
P&P
References:
Project Sonar Report To: The Physician Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee:
https://aspe.hhs.gov/system/files/pdf/253406/ProjectSonarSonarMD.pdf
Article in Modern Health Care:
