Health & Fitness
Emory Orthopaedics Offering No-Contact Telemedicine Care
Telemedicine at Emory Orthopaedics makes no-contact patient care easy and efficient.
This post is sponsored and contributed by a Patch Brand Partner. The views expressed in this post are the author's own.
For 10 years, Emory Orthopaedics wanted to make telemedicine part of its regular services for patients. But a lack of technology and federal requirements for telemedicine made it difficult to achieve that goal. Those obstacles quickly disappeared in the face of the novel coronavirus global pandemic.
“In 72 hours, we went from not using telemedicine to very quickly developing workflows, virtual backflows and patient support teams to deliver care via video conferencing,” explains Scott Boden, MD, the director of Emory Orthopaedics & Spine Center. “We took the opportunity within the first hours of the pandemic to completely reinvent the model that we had for 50-plus years.”
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At the heart of this was the desire to provide the services and support patients still require, even during the COVID-19 outbreak.
“It was important to us to figure out a way to continue to provide care for the patients that need it,” Dr. Boden says. “If someone falls and breaks their hip, that’s a life-threatening orthopedic injury that needs to be treated immediately. If someone breaks a finger and you don’t put it back in the right way, they may lose function in their hand.”
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“We had to figure out a way we could help our patients. Telemedicine was a good fit for that,” he said.
Video Consults With An Emory Orthopedic Specialist For Your Injuries
The providers at Emory Orthopaedics are now using video conferencing to see patients. And they’re discovering they can do more than they first thought possible.
“Through video conferences, we can instruct our patients on how to do many of the things we would do in the office. We can have them do their own muscle strength testing or have someone who lives with them do some of the things we would do, all while we are closely listening, watching and observing,” Dr. Boden says.
A Better Approach For Urgent Orthopedic Care
Dr. Boden also recognized the role telemedicine could play in orthopedic urgent care. After all, injuries can happen anytime and anywhere — whether or not your doctor’s office is open or has appointments available.
Orthopedic urgent care has helped fill that gap by providing walk-in appointments for many different injuries and conditions. But this approach still left people driving around town, waiting in an office and seeing whichever provider was available — regardless of the injury or the provider’s expertise.
The opportunity, Dr. Boden realized, was helping patients and their families figure out what care was needed and connecting them with the right expert.
“You can connect with an orthopedic provider from home or the playing field with video conferencing on a phone or laptop,” he says. “An orthopedic doctor will assess your injury to determine if you need an X-ray or splint tonight or if you can go into the office first thing tomorrow morning.”
“You’ll get advice tailored to your injury and, just as importantly, be connected with the orthopedic specialist that is an expert in your injury,” Dr. Boden said.
Opportunities For Collaboration And Growth
Providers can gain important insight by carefully interviewing the patient and family members, asking about symptoms, listening to patients and assessing the injury.
“If I’m seeing an athlete with a possible arm fracture, I can ask a parent or coach to help me assess his injury,” Dr. Boden explains. “By looking at if he can tolerate touch near the injury; if it’s bruised or swollen; or if he can move his arm, I can get a pretty good idea of what we may be dealing with.”
Orthopedic providers are also able to collaborate with subspecialists about the injury they’re assessing.
“There’s a real benefit for high school athletes thinking of playing in college to be able to connect with a doctor who treats the quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons or the Cy Young pitcher with the Braves,” adds Dr. Boden. “Emory Orthopaedics has nearly 100 providers, and almost all of them have a subspecialty. That means you get the precise care that you or your family needs.”
Dr. Boden reminds patients to still go to the nearest emergency room for serious injuries, such as a broken hip, dislocated joint or severe fracture.
A Care Model With Staying Power
Dr. Boden doesn’t see telemedicine as a fleeting approach to care. He sees it as a service his team will continue to offer to patients, even after the COVID-19 pandemic passes.
“Our patients like telemedicine,” he states. “Going forward, telemedicine care will look a little different for each subspecialty, but it will be a permanent part of our services.”
Patients like telemedicine for many different reasons: The convenience of talking with a doctor from their home and fewer distractions during appointments. Based on a survey of patients, 91.4 percent of patients gave the best grade possible for in-person visits, and 96.1 percent gave the best grade for telemedicine visits.
“You can really engage and connect with a patient when you’re looking at them and they’re looking at you,” explains Dr. Boden. “Telemedicine, in many ways, has allowed us to get back to how we used to practice medicine — based on face-to-face interactions, even though it’s actually over a screen.”