Orca Health has developed several valuable digital tools to help clinicians more fully engage patients in recent years, including an app called Heart Decide and four iBooks on angina, angioplasty, atherosclerosis, and cardiac catheterization — a lot of Cardiology apps.
Their latest venture, Orca’s Care Plan, is a mobile app that patients receive from their provider after receiving medical care. It contains their treatment plan, including 3D interactive models as well as animations to help them understand their disorder and the procedure they have been through.
Orca’s high quality anatomical drawings and animations are accompanied by messages to patients like “This is a quick overview of the anatomy I discussed with you during your office visit.” And video might show a consumer-friendly explanation of a spinal procedure that explains what happens to a person’s spine during lumbar disc herniation, for example. The app also gives patients access to physical therapy videos, as needed, to provide continuity of care.
Since patient satisfaction has become an integral part of some third party payment decisions, Care Plan has devised a system to fold patient satisfaction surveys into each patient’s treatment plan. This is accomplished by means of a series of “Check-Ups” that the patient receives through the app. The surveys cover both patient satisfaction and patient reported outcomes.
In most clinical scenarios, it’s common for patients to receive satisfaction surveys by regular mail or to receive a phone call long after they’ve left the office. Orca tries to improve response rates by automatically delivering its surveys by email and by positioning the surveys as part of the patient’s care plan. Similarly, patients who are part of the Care Plan program receive forms to fill out that measure patient-reported outcomes (PROs). These PROs include surgeon scores, back pain indexes, hip injury and osteoarthritis outcome reports, the WOMAC score, and many more.
Care Plan – Engagement & Communication for Patients and Providers
By Orca Health, Inc.
Price: Free for patients
