Blog: Pulse
Pulse: A Web-Based Platform For Integrated Care Assessment and Improvement
In 2009, Xpert Clinic and Erasmus Medical Center started the development of Pulse, a platform for tracking health outcomes following treatment of hand and wrist disorders. Two years later, Xpert Clinic fully incorporated the platform in their daily clinical care processes. Pulse’s database now contains detailed clinical data of more than 15,000 patients and continues to grow rapidly. By constantly analyzing the underlying patterns in the collected data and adding new functionality to the Pulse platform, we have created several tools to improve the quality of the care delivered at our organization.
The implementation en utilization of Pulse provides advantages that span the entire care cycle (figure). First of all, patients receive better information on their treatment plan, prognosis, rehabilitation, and expected outcomes. We have created a secure personal web-page that each patient receives when booking an appointment with Xpert Clinic, to access all this information and guide every patient through the entire treatment process. Care providers have an easily accessible system at their disposal that rapidly provides them with insight in the health status of their patients and allows them to adjust treatment plans when needed. The platform also allows for comparison and benchmarking of achieved treatment outcome at the level of institutions and clinicians. By making the core of the Pulse software open-source, we allow other health care providers to join us in our efforts.
Future endeavors will aim at expanding the Pulse functionality to predict health outcomes for individual patients and develop tools that aid clinicians to decide optimal treatment. Developing strategies that improve patient-engagement are paramount since data quality and completeness determine the extent of insight that can be achieved in the effectiveness of treatment. Our efforts from the past four years centered around the Pulse platform has enabled Xpert Clinic to work towards a more value-based approach of health care delivery. In doing so, we hope to be an inspiration to other healthcare providers with similar aspirations.