Kindred’s RehabTracker App is Helping to Improve Outcomes for Patients
November 5, 2018
LOUISVILLE, KY–Kindred Rehabilitation Services (“KRS”), a division of Kindred Healthcare, LLC (“Kindred”), announced that initial data from healthcare locations where RehabTracker™ is being utilized shows the application is improving outcomes for patients.
RehabTracker is a mobile app developed by KRS that enhances the way KRS and its partners engage with patients and their families during their rehab stays. Patients work with their therapy team to set personal goals and input them into the app; use their cell phones or tablets to see and track their progress in real time; share that progress with invited family and friends; and receive messages of support from loved ones—all at the palm of their hands. The app is compliant with federal health information privacy rules and can be used by patients and families during bedside shift report, interdisciplinary rounds and physician visits to review important information and the care plan for the day.
KRS began using RehabTracker at partner locations in 2018 and will soon begin offering the app to patients at its freestanding joint venture inpatient rehabilitation hospitals and to patients receiving therapy at Kindred’s long-term acute care hospitals. On average, patients at KRS-served locations using RehabTracker as of June 2018 experienced a:
- 7.9% increase in Functional Independence Measure (“FIM”), which evaluates a patient’s functional improvements from admission to discharge;
- 3.2% increase in discharge to community, a reflection of the increased overall percentage of patients able to return home after treatment versus being discharged to another healthcare setting; and
- 20 percentile point increase in Program Evaluation Model score, which measures the effectiveness and efficiency of patient care across several metrics.
“With forward-thinking rehabilitation and intuitive technology like our RehabTracker patient engagement app, our 7,000 therapists are better able to help patients get back to their lives,” said Jason Zachariah, President of KRS. “We know that motivated and engaged patients typically respond better to rehabilitation care and as a result have better outcomes, so we leveraged the popular app platform to provide a convenient means to help them track and share their progress.”
Three of the initial locations to help patients benefit from the app are hospitals in northern Indiana that are part of Community Healthcare System®. Therapists at Community Hospital (Munster, IN), St. Mary’s Medical Center (Hobart, IN) and St. Catherine Hospital (East Chicago, IN) began encouraging acute rehabilitation unit patients and family members to try RehabTracker during the first quarter of 2018. The early returns, detailed in the table below, are encouraging.
| FIM gain | 2017 | April 2018 | Discharge to community | 2017 | April 2018 | |||||||||||||||
| Community Hospital | 27.40 | 29.24 | Community Hospital | 72.1% | 74.7% | |||||||||||||||
| St. Catherine Hospital | 25.39 | 33.03 | St. Catherine Hospital | 72.3% | 77.2% | |||||||||||||||
| St. Mary’s Medical Center | 29.88 | 31.80 | St. Mary’s Medical Center | 82.9% | 82.9% | |||||||||||||||
“RehabTracker enables patients who have suffered a stroke, or other conditions, to view their goals and track progress while receiving their care in therapy,” explained Craig Bolda, vice president of Acute Rehabilitation Services at Community Healthcare System. “The display of data not only motivates the patient, but can also be shared with family and friends. These patients are medically complex and they need to be motivated with lots of encouragement on a daily basis to help them make progress. Engaging patients in daily targets help them get home.”
One of the many benefits of the mobile app platform is the ability to add functionality and features based on user feedback. A recently added photo feature, for instance, allows patients to share images of their therapy progress.
Kindred Rehabilitation Services is a leading provider of rehabilitation services, including physical, occupational and speech-language therapies, to over 2,000 hospitals and long-term care facilities in 46 states. KRS is a premier provider of rehab throughout the full continuum of care, including long-term acute care hospitals, nursing and rehabilitation centers, inpatient acute rehab units, independent rehabilitation facilities and hospice and home care locations.
KRS includes two operating divisions—RehabCare, which consists of therapy management in skilled nursing facilities and the community (assisted and independent living communities and home health), and Kindred Hospital Rehabilitation Services, which consists of our therapy management operations in acute rehab units of hospitals, outpatient therapy clinics, and long-term acute care hospitals, as well as Kindred’s inpatient rehabilitation hospitals.
Kindred Healthcare, LLC is a healthcare services company based in Louisville, KY. At September 30, 2018, Kindred through its subsidiaries had approximately 37,400 employees providing healthcare services in 1,894 locations in 45 states, including 74 long-term acute care hospitals, 22 inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, 11 sub-acute units, 98 inpatient rehabilitation units (hospital-based) and contract rehabilitation service businesses which served 1,689 non-affiliated sites of service. Kindred has been ranked as one of Fortune magazine’s Most Admired Healthcare Companies for nine years.
