By Mark Lieberman

Driven by an aging population, the incidence of musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions has risen over the past decade. In the U.S., approximately half the adult population lives with MSK conditions, including arthritis, chronic neck or back pain, and osteoporosis-related fractures. Unsurprisingly, MSK conditions are one of the most expensive conditions for health plans to manage, following only cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Due in part to changes in CMS reimbursement policies, many MSK conditions are now treated in hospital outpatient department and ambulatory surgery center settings rather than in hospitals. As many elective inpatient and outpatient orthopedic and musculoskeletal surgeries have been canceled due to the pandemic, the loss of this revenue has had a significant economic impact on the healthcare industry.
Now more than ever, it is imperative for healthcare systems to reduce MSK spend by reducing care variation and optimizing efficiency. For both operative and nonoperative MSK patients, digital care management solutions can drive down the cost of care throughout an episode.

Fixing the preoperative retention gap
With a digital care management platform, the preoperative patient appointment can be replaced with virtual education, which provides patients with procedure-specific information before their surgery date. From the convenience of home, patients can view their care team’s surgery protocols, watch videos that show how to prepare their environments for the use of a walker or other assistive device and learn information that sets expectations for the scope of their recovery.

While many health systems believe that face-to-face education is necessary to ensure full comprehension, research shows that patients only remember 49% of the information their doctors deliver in person. Well-designed care management platforms correct this retention gap with video design best practices, such as content segmentation that minimizes the cognitive load. Many virtual classes include progressive knowledge checks that measure patient comprehension by asking patients to recall key learning goals and takeaways from each module.

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