Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies
Date Submitted: Oct 13, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Oct 13, 2022 - Dec 8, 2022
Date Accepted: Mar 5, 2023
Date Submitted to PubMed: Mar 8, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
The effect of a mobile health App on treatment adherence and revenue at physical health clinics: a retrospective record review
ABSTRACT
Background:
A significant proportion of patients do not adhere to their prescribed course of physical therapy or self-discharge themselves from care. The literature also indicates that behavioral change techniques introduced through digital or online platforms can reduce nonadherence with prescribed physical therapy and improve patient outcomes.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to compare the rate of provider-discharge with self-discharge and the number of clinic visits among patients attending a physical health clinic who did and did not choose to adopt a phone-based app to complement their treatment. A secondary purpose was to compare the revenue generated by patients attending a physical health clinic who did and did not choose to adopt a phone-based app to complement their treatment.
Methods:
A retrospective analysis of all new outpatient medical records (n=5,328) from a multisite physical health practice were evaluated between January 2018 to December 2019. Patients in the sample self-selected into the 2018 Usual Care Group, the 2019 Usual Care Group and the 2019 Kanvas App Group who downloaded the Kanvas App. Kanvas is a customized private practice App, designed for patient engagement with their specific health care provider. According to their medical record each patient was classified as completing prescribed therapy (Provider-Discharged) or not completing their prescribed therapy (Self-Discharged). Also, extracted from each patient’s electronic medical record were the total number of clinic visits each patient attended, the total charges for services and the total payments received by the clinic per patient.
Results:
Patients in the 2019 Kanvas App Group exhibited a higher rate of provider-discharge compared to the patients who did not adopt the phone-base app. This greater rate of provider-discharges among the patients who adopted the Kanvas App likely contributed to this group also attending more clinic visits and generating more clinic charges and payments.
Conclusions:
Future investigators need to employ more rigorous methods to confirm these findings and clinicians need to weigh the anticipated benefits against the cost and staff involvement in managing the Kanvas App. Clinical Trial: This was not a clinical trial
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