Orthopedic Surgeons Improve Spine Health Through Data

In a highly competitive market, orthopedic surgeons and spine specialists are differentiating their practices through data. By tracking patient-reported outcomes data through digital outcome tracking platform, OutcomeMD,  orthopedic and physical therapy healthcare professionals are elevated the care they provide — while allowing their patients to celebrate their great outcomes.

Patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMs) are metrics about healthcare directly reported by patients who experience care. From joint replacement surgeries, to lumbar care to procedures to alleviate neck pain and back pain, patients are able to objectively rate the quality of their outcomes.

“OutcomeMD improves any orthopedic surgeon’s ability to efficiently and effectively care for patients by using medically valid patient-reported outcome measures to score and track patients’ symptoms in a way that they love,” said Justin Saliman, M.D., CEO and Founder of OutcomeMD and an orthopedic surgeon himself. “The patient and clinician can now fully understand how the treatment plan impacts symptoms over time and improve their shared medical decision-making process.

Proving the Benefits of Spine Surgery

Board-certified orthopedic spine surgeon Hooman M. Melamed, M.D. has used patient reported outcomes data to quantify his success.

Specializing in minimally invasive spine surgery and spinal disorders, Dr. Melamed  developed a unique patent-pending pain management approach to treating patients without narcotics. As an orthopedic provider who is constantly seeking to improve the quality of life and spine health of the patients he treats, Dr.Melamed was looking for a way to systematically track his patients’ outcomes. He knew he was getting great outcomes but did not have a means of measuring them. Moreover, he wanted to utilize his patients’ spine surgery outcomes to better understand what was and what was not working. He turned to OutcomeMD to help him achieve these goals.

“Every surgeon says they have the best outcomes, but the proof is in the numbers,” Dr. Melamed said. “I can now back up my clinical outcomes with data.”

Substantiate outcomes and establish best practices

By using OutcomeMD, Dr.Melamed can successfully understand and demonstrate how his patients are progressing throughout their orthopedic care and treatment plan. For example, he found that 95% of his pain management patients are treated successfully without the use of narcotics. With OutcomeMD’s unique data analysis dashboard, Dr.Melamed can easily aggregate and analyze a wide variety of orthopedic preoperative and postoperative outcomes; he can have his hand on the pulse of his patients that are progressing and those that are declining.

Moreover, he can include or exclude any confounding factors, such as adverse life events or confounding injuries, to make his analysis more accurate, informative, and fair. These spine health and pain management metrics, displayed in a de-identified way, can be used as helpful educational tools for prospective patients because they clearly set expectations for the various treatment options they can undergo for their specific condition, such as spinal fusion or disc replacement. Ultimately, the data he has obtained through OutcomeMD allows him to establish best practices for his spine center so that he can continue to improve upon his clinical proficiency, empowering him to do what he does best: help patients to achieve great outcomes.

Easy and Effective

Within a month, Dr.Melamed was up and running with OutcomeMD via DrChrono.

“Once you get it going, it’s very easy,” said Dr.Melamed.

And it has been easy for his patients too. Since August 2020, nearly 1,300 of Dr.Melamed’s patients have been sent an initial orthopedic assessment with approximately 80% completing their initial and 75% completing their follow-ups.

Patients enjoy seeing their scores after they have taken their survey. This unique feature of OutcomeMD’s patient experience helps to make healthcare more inclusive and transparent. Having OutcomeMD integrated within DrChrono is a major benefit because it works seamlessly with the electronic health record, enabling the assessment results to be pushed directly into a patient’s note and minimizing potential data double-entry.

A Boon to Doctor and Patient Alike

The insights OutcomeMD offer spine specialists not only inform and elevate their practice, but it offers an easy and effective way for surgeons to leverage their great results. As he improves the health of his back pain patients, Dr. Melamed said, OutcomeMD helps to improve the health of his spinal surgery practice.

This is because OutcomeMD is the only Outcome Tracking platform that also offers Management, and Marketing features. For spine care specialist Dr.Melamed, the ultimate benefit of using OutcomeMD is that it helps him to track, aggregate, and analyze his objective results.

“The data you have is coming right from the patient without any tampering from the provider,” he said. “So, you can feel confident that the outcome data you’re seeing is telling the actual story of the patient’s treatment progression.”