Hospital for Special Surgery Demonstrates Healthcare Innovation with New Pre-Op Prep from Home Initiative

New York, NY—April 13, 2015

Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) today announced the launch of a new partnership to promote care coordination, patient engagement and education for pre- and post-operative surgery care through the ViiMed® telehealth platform. ViiMed®, a fast growing Washington, D.C.-based healthcare software company, enables health systems, like HSS, to personalize telehealth programming that provides patients with a convenient educational and interactive tool to prepare for surgery. This new partnership will ensure patients receive surgery information and education conveniently from their own home and, in the process, improve upon workflow within the hospital. In the post-operative setting, ViiMed automates the delivery of clinical follow-up, reminding patients of tasks necessary for a full recovery.

"HSS is excited about partnering to co-develop digital health solutions that improve clinical outcomes, enhance the patient experience, and/or lower the cost to deliver care," said Mark Angelo, Vice President of Innovation and Business Development at HSS. "We are excited to implement ViiMed’s® unique approach to improving patient-surgeon interactions both before and after surgery at HSS – saving both parties time and money."

HSS will initially use the ViiMed® platform to educate patients about their upcoming surgery. "Rather than facing the potential inconvenience and expense of having to come to us at a particular time to watch a pre-operative educational video, ViiMed® automation will deliver it to patients on a preset date. They can watch it from the comfort of home at the time that's most convenient for them," said Dr. Bryan Kelly, Chief of the Sports Medicine Service at Hospital for Special Surgery, who is piloting the system. "And we save valuable staff time. So everyone benefits."

The HSS Innovation Center partners with startup companies like ViiMed®, through its accelerator function to co-develop, test and refine care delivery and digital health solutions at HSS that can then be implemented at other providers. "ViiMed® is thrilled to be working with HSS," said Phil Newman, the company's CEO. "Our platform has a very wide range of applications, but there is no doubt pre and post surgery is in the center of our sweet spot and HSS is an ideal user."

With ViiMed's® asynchronous alternative, physicians and patients can exchange interactive video messages that can be accessed and viewed anytime and on any device. In addition, extending clinical workflow to patients at home allows physicians to interact with more patients each day. "That's the game changer", said Dr. Richard Seldes, a New York-based orthopedic surgeon who serves as ViiMed's® Chief Medical Officer. "With the demands on us today, being virtually in more than one place at a time, is becoming a job requirement. It’s a force multiplier for us."

HSS will soon add related use cases such as substituting in-person post-operative visits with asynchronous video sessions, including patient-recorded range of motion exercises.

Previously, the industry focus had been on synchronous, or real-time, communication technologies. However, healthcare leaders have realized that though it’s valuable in overcoming geographic challenges, it fails to remedy the problem of aligning multiple parties with busy schedules to be available simultaneously.

About ViiMed
ViiMed®, the leader in workflow-enabled asynchronous telehealth and care coordination, is a rapidly growing privately held, D.C.-based company. The team is dedicated to guided patient empowerment at-the-home, improving financial and health outcomes for health systems and provider groups. To learn more about ViiMed, please visit ViiMed.com.