CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Upfront Healthcare, the health tech provider behind the industry’s leading platform for patient engagement, is pleased to announce the successful deployment of its platform for orthopedic total joint care journeys for Riverside Doctors’ Hospital Williamsburg (RDHW), a state-of-the-art Riverside Health System (RHS) hospital in Williamsburg, VA. Upfront’s omnichannel outreach actively navigates patients to stay on track with the right information on the right channel before, during, and after total hip replacements (THR) and total knee replacements (TKR), significantly reducing the labor costs associated with patient education and enhancing the sequence of care. The success of the orthopedic care journey program has resulted in RHS scaling Upfront’s patient engagement technology to Riverside Walter Reed Hospital (RWRH).
The RHS hospital selected Upfront for its scalable platform that leverages rigorous science combined with data to create a personalized technology-enabled solution that ensures an optimized patient journey for hip and knee replacement surgeries. Upfront’s advanced patient engagement solution has enabled RDHW to curate hyper-personalized healthcare experiences, fostering a trusted relationship with the hospital to bolster cost savings and lower readmission rates for THR or TKR care journeys.
The initial collaboration between Upfront and RDHW resulted in a robust, standardized, and efficient patient journey, enabling the hospital to achieve the following results to date:
- 502 unique patients have received orthopedic care journey outreach through SMS and email since launching the program in May 2022 with an overall conversion rate of 68%.
- Positively impacted the number of late surgery cancellations or reschedules within one week of surgery from 12.2% down to 4.5%, resulting in an estimated $347,000/year in net revenue through the mitigation of surgery downtime.
- Reduced the labor cost by $7,700 annually and lowered the time related for education by 23 hours monthly when compared to the previous process.
- Dramatically decreased the labor hours associated with pre-surgery education from an estimated 288 hours annually down to 12 hours.
- Increased patient engagement – 97.5% platform participation with overall engagement and a click-through rate of 85%. Only 2.5% of patients opted out.
- For a period of time, the program also established measurement of patients’ functionality and success after surgery using Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) and Hip Disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (HOOS) scores, with a 50% completion rate for both. The data also reflected landmark improvements, with a 116% boost improvement for KOOS and 211% for HOOS compared to the national benchmarks of 36% for KOOS and 38% for HOOS, respectively, from the period beginning June 2022 through April 2023.
RDHW performs more than 350 THR and TKR surgeries annually and is dedicated to Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS®) compliance. Comprehensive patient education is essential for successful joint replacement surgeries, and is also mandatory for the DNV Advanced Hip and Knee Replacement Certification. Due to the pandemic, in-person educational classes were canceled, and new methods were adopted that required holding patients accountable to review the videos sent to their e-mail addresses or patient portals – requiring more time and labor from the Total Joint Nurse Navigator.
“Riverside Health System selected Upfront Healthcare’s patient engagement platform for its ability to develop personalized microsites that win patient loyalty as they are guided on their orthopedic care journey. We also put a strong focus on scalability and we have already expanded the program at Riverside Walter Reed Hospital (RWRH),” shared Doug Culbert, Associate Vice President, Orthopedics, Riverside Health System. “The microsite has been instrumental in reducing surgery cancellations due to non-compliance of pre-operative protocols. Now, RHS care teams can benchmark our performance against industry best practices. To date, RHS’s patient engagement metrics have all surpassed industry averages in an exceedingly high fashion, which was achieved due to the encouragement and explanation on the front end, the automated nature of the microsite and the highly personalized and consumer-friendly messaging.”
With a focus on patient engagement as the cornerstone of the program, Upfront designed a personalized digital approach for RDHW's patient education process to automate outreach, messaging, and reporting. Upfront’s platform alerted clinical staff when to proactively reach out to patients who were off track and needed to complete their education before surgery. RDHW's patient engagement for views was seven times greater than the industry benchmark for TKR and six times greater for THR while maintaining high patient satisfaction results and overall quality of care.
“Upfront is pleased with the outstanding success of Riverside Health System’s orthopedic care journeys initiative, which not only provided their knee and hip replacement patients with the educational resources they need to feel confident about their surgery but also brought them full transparency into their care journey,” noted Carrie Kozlowski, COO and co-founder of Upfront Healthcare. “Upfront’s platform also gave the clinical and administrative teams the data needed to better understand engagement at every step in the process – including up to a year post-joint replacement – allowing them to improve patient compliance, retention rates and overall cost savings.”
About Riverside Health System
Riverside Health System (RHS) is an integrated health network providing over 2 million services annually. Serving Eastern Virginia since 1915, Riverside is guided by a mission to “care for others as we would care for those we love.” The health system offers a variety of services and programs in the areas of prevention, primary care, diagnostics, neurosciences, oncology, orthopedics, aging-related services, rehabilitation, medical education, home care and hospice. RHS operates four acute-care hospitals, a mental health and recovery hospital with a dedicated psychiatric emergency department, in addition to a physical rehabilitation hospital and a critical illness recovery hospital in partnership with Select Medical. RHS is also under construction on the new Riverside Smithfield Hospital, scheduled to open early 2026. Riverside Medical Group has more than 750 physicians and advanced practice providers across a broad spectrum of specialties in over 110 locations throughout the region. Riverside Lifelong Health operates six nursing home facilities and three vibrant continuing care retirement communities alongside Riverside Home Health and Hospice services. In addition to these health care services, RHS operates the Riverside College of Health Careers and six medical residency programs. The company employs more than 9,500 team members throughout Eastern Virginia. For more information on Riverside, visit riversideonline.com.
About Upfront Healthcare
Upfront is a mission-driven healthcare company delivering tangible outcomes to leading healthcare systems and provider groups. Its patient engagement platform makes each patient feel seen, guiding their care experience through personalized outreach. The backbone of the Upfront experience is its data engine, which analyzes clinical, sociodemographic, and patient-reported data. These insights, along with its advanced psychographic segmentation model, allow Upfront to individually activate patients to get the care they need while building a meaningful relationship between the patient and their health system. Upfront is rooted in partnership, leveraging best-in-class healthcare expertise to maximize the impact of technology and deliver a next-generation patient experience. To learn more, visit https://upfronthealthcare.com.
