Advanced technologies are propounding new innovations and becoming the access key for an innovative future. Like any other sector, the healthcare industry is also improving with modern technologies. The technological changes in healthcare have brought comfort and impacted all the processes of healthcare professionals. Reflexion Health is a virtual rehabilitation therapy company dedicated to bringing patients evidence-based technology that helps them recover at home. It is owned by Digital Health Corp, a diversified healthcare company that’s focused on bringing patientcentred, data-driven, evidence-based solutions to homebased recovery.
A Virtual Healthcare Assistant
Reflexion Health’s lead product VERA™ is an FDAcleared and clinically proven Virtual Exercise Rehabilitation Assistant that is able to support and remotely monitor physical therapy exercises. VERA brings the guidance of a physical therapist into the home to coach, motivate and assess exercise movements and adherence to prescribed physical therapy recovery exercises. The product is uniquely designed to deliver home-based, on-demand therapy sessions. The platform’s engaging avatar is combined with non-contact 3D biometrics and comprehensive remote monitoring by clinicians and tele health visits. This saves time, steps, and money for patients, providers, and payers and is a true win-win approach.
The company provides an integrated technology kit that is shipped to the patients’ home prior to surgery so they can become accustomed to using it. Interactive videos and checklists help prepare patients for what to expect throughout the rehab experience. With a Net Promoter Score of 91, patient affinity for VERA exceeds Apple products and Amazon services.
Exemplifying Proficiency
Dr. Joseph Smith in his role as President and Chief Executive Officer of Reflexion Health leverages decades of strategic, engineering and clinical expertise in the Health IT field. He leads the company’s efforts to bring personalized healthcare into the homes of patients across the United States. Dr. Smith’s extensive leadership background in technology, policy, clinical practice and medical industries serves as the ideal foundation for Reflexion Health. Prior to joining the company, he served as the founding Chief Medical and Science Officer at the West Health Institute, a non-profit, nonpartisan medical research organization that provides funding for Digital Health Corp.
Dr. Smith’s leadership background also includes serving as Vice President of Emerging Technologies for Johnson & Johnson, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Guidant/Boston Scientific’s Cardiac Rhythm Management division, and Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Before that, he was a practicing cardiologist for almost twenty years, training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, with subsequent sub-specialty training in clinical cardiac electrophysiology and faculty appointments at Washington University in St Louis and Johns Hopkins University. He also established the Arrhythmia Institute in Fairfax, Virginia, which specializes in interventional cardiac electrophysiology and clinical research.
Cumulative Benefits
VERA is designed to solve real problems like skyrocketing healthcare costs and limited healthcare accessibility. It provides the same level of care as in-person PT at a substantially reduced cost with significantly great accessibility. In October of 2018, the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) completed a trial demonstrating that VERA saves more than $2,745 per patient, is as safe and effective as traditional PT, and reduces hospital readmissions by 60%. Additional results include:
- Patient adherence: Patient using VERA had a mean adherence of 77.9%, as measured by the repetitions completed over the course of the episode of care vs. traditional adherence of 42.7%.
- Completed Exercises per Home Exercise Program (HEP): Patients on average completed 12 exercises during their HEP session vs. the traditional 4-5 exercises.
- Total Rehabilitation Length (days): Patients completed their rehab in 29.4 days vs. traditional therapy lasting 55 days. This included all virtual visits, post-surgical visits, and days spent engaging with their HEP.
Evident Challenges
The traditional healthcare process is too often marked by inconvenience. Ask most patients about their experience going to a doctor’s appointment and their description often consists of long wait times, hassle, and frustration. In the healthcare field where technology has improved innovation by leaps and bounds, technology is now being harnessed to provide greater patient convenience. With VERA, patients are able to recover from surgery or injury in their own home, avoiding unnecessary travel, wait times, and co-pays. They can exercise when it is most convenient for them, and enjoy the flexibility to schedule rehab time around their schedule.
Standing Out from Competition
While the ability of patients to recover at home brings various advantages, including allowing patients to avoid travel to and from clinics at a time when their mobility may be severely impaired, it also means that the solution needs to be compelling enough for patients to continue to use it day after day. So, VERA was designed to be incredibly engaging and user friendly, and to employ gamification techniques in order to motivate and compel users to do their prescribed exercises. The avatar, VERA, was strategically designed with a persona to appeal to our target audience, providing audio-visual feedback and encouragement to keep users motivated. Many users report that they felt compelled to do their exercises so they wouldn’t “let VERA down.” The kit arrives fully operational with nothing to assemble. It includes its own cellular modem so it can be used even if a user does not have Wifi.
