A lack of time to provide focused care is the most common challenge orthopedic specialists and their support staff face. With that lack of time and focus comes the potential for serious consequences for physicians and patients alike.
As a critical-care physician and a researcher observed while researching the effects of rushed patient consultations: “Compressed medicine has real risks. Clinicians become more likely to miss pertinent information that would have altered the treatment plan and are often blind to patients’ lack of understanding. All of this serves to diminish the joy of serving patients, thereby contributing to high rates of physician burnout. These consequences have clear human and financial costs.
The medical literature increasingly offers potential solutions to the inefficiencies that rob patients of physicians’ time and attention, including delegating lower-expertise tasks to non-physician team members, improving the design of the electronic health system, and greatly reducing the [paperwork] bureaucracy that adds little or no value.”
Ask any ortho who is perpetually playing catch up, and they would agree that too much of their precious time is spent on low risk tasks that could be performed by other team members—or, in many cases, by a patient-facing technology solution. Patient education, particularly as it relates to bracing and other durable medical equipment (DME), is a prime example of such a task.
Knowing that educating patients can make or break even the most routine orthopedic surgery case, many physicians spend an excessive amount of time going over procedure details and recovery plans. But with research indicating low literacy levels among patients, what choice does an orthopedic doctor or physical therapist really have if they want to educate and guide their patients to the desired recovery outcome?
It’s a question our team carefully considered while developing the Graymont X system of recovery tools. We recognized the growing tension between the need for patient education, and, as the authors of a related study put it, “an ever-shifting burden of care from provider to patient, particularly given current health policy and increasing pressure for providers to contain cost.”
As a result, our system was designed to offer not only better braces and wraps with integrated cold therapy, but also better patient support, and better support for physicians and other staff members who may encounter a DMEPOS workflow or other medical inventory management system.
We’ve thoughtfully streamlined the process of incorporating our line of recovery products into orthopedic and physical therapy practices and routines—from staff education and training resources to patient education and support.
By providing holistic support, the Graymont X system enables orthopedic specialists, physical therapists, and related care providers to give their patients a better, more comprehensive recovery experience without disrupting office or clinical/practice workflows.
Our support system includes Patient Opioid Safety Education, proper opioid disposal tools, a searchable resource library as well as Patient Recovery Assistant emails. And most of all, a growing range of DME products developed in response to the specific needs of orthopedic physicians and their teams in order to provide their patients with a more effective and convenient method of cold therapy. With these innovative solutions in hand, healthcare providers have the ability to reshape what recovery looks like for their patients.
