Using Mobile Health Technology to Capture Physical, Functional, and Psychosocial Features that Predict Recovery after Lumbar Fusion
The Opportunity
Lumbar spine fusion for degenerative disease is among the most common surgeries performed at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and more broadly in the United States. Acute and subacute surgical recovery is primarily measured in terms of pain resolution, opioid use, and resumption of activity. These measures have a major impact on quality of life, patient satisfaction, resource utilization, and postoperative complications. The problem to be solved was how to predict patient recovery after lumbar fusion surgery in order to improve postoperative recovery.
Our Approach
There was a pressing need for precision methods to identify the physical, functional, and psychosocial factors that drive surgical recovery.
Dr. Ray, Dr. Greenberg, and their team leveraged mobile health (mHealth) technology and advanced analytic techniques to collect intensive, longitudinal, psychometric, and biometric data to define how different disease domains impact recovery from lumbar fusion surgery. They evaluated the prognostic value of these data points compared to traditional, cross-sectional, patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs).
The Solution
The final report for this project is not complete, so please check back at a later time for more information about the outcomes of this project.
