OA Centers: Engaging patients and tracking clinical outcomes

Read about how the U.S. based medical research and consulting firm, OsteoArthritis Centers of America, uses Physitrack and PhysiData to gather patient adherence and outcomes data to measure the real-time efficacy of its patented clinical programs.

In early 2017, the OsteoArthritis Centers of America (OA Centers), a medical consulting and research firm working with over 300 clinics across the United States, were looking for a way to help the OA Centers affiliated clinics better engage their patients and track clinical outcomes virtually. OA Centers Founder, Dr. Mark Lee, quickly realized the synergies in enhancing digital patient engagement and remote data gathering using Physitrack solutions.

Since OA Centers and its parent company were founded in 1999, clinical “Programs”, and data gathering have been the key ingredients to the company’s success. OA Centers has worked with thousands of doctors and physical therapists over the years, and has helped them improve clinical care using outcomes and data gathering. Collectively they have gathered over 60,000 outcomes on patients from around the United States.  

As Dr. Lee states, “Healthcare delivery continues to evolve, and we at OA Centers have always believed that outcomes and clinical data is the only way to validate the most effective delivery methods. In recent years Medicare and insurance carriers have agreed with this approach, and begun paying clinicians based on outcomes, rather than on services rendered. We continue to believe, and operate, with data and outcomes at the center of everything we do. It is the only way to promote good patient outcomes, and a great patient experience”Since OA Centers has been gathering clinical outcomes using pain scale, WOMAC© and OSWESTRY© outcomes for years, they have a great familiarity with large scale data gathering processes. They have published numerous peer reviewed works using such data (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28503072).

Now, using Physitrack and PhysiData, the OA Centers are streamlining and simplifying the data gathering process, both for the clinicians and the patient. Using Physitrack’s unique mobile solutions, clinicians send patients home exercises following the Patented Program, along with outcomes tracking surveys. These surveys are then automatically made available for clinicians and OA Centers, allowing the providers to see how the patient is progressing in real-time. The mobile apps for patients and providers make this process simple and automated, while promoting an outstanding patient experience.