Pathways: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Medbridge Pathways, our new digital care platform, is purpose-built to keep therapy at the forefront of care and help your organization deliver superior patient outcomes across the musculoskeletal care spectrum.  

We know you have questions about this new platform, and we have answers. In this article, we'll answer the most frequently asked questions we've received since announcing Medbridge Pathways.

• Medbridge and Pathways
• Pathways Content & Program Design
• Pathways Features & Capabilities 
• Pathways Workflows
• Pricing & Packaging

Pathways and Medbridge

How does Pathways work with the rest of Medbridge’s Care products (HEP, RTM, Telehealth)?

Pathways is a separate product within the Care product family that is solving different challenges than HEP.

Can patients access Pathways from the Medbridge GO app?

No, Medbridge Pathways is a separate product from our HEP & Medbridge GO offerings. Currently Pathways is accessed by patients via a web browser, which we've designed to be as responsive and intuitive as a native mobile app.

You can make it even easier to access Pathways by helping them add a shortcut on their mobile device. Learn how to create a Pathways shortcut. 

How is Pathways different than your current HEP & RTM offering?

While HEP is still a very valuable tool for Rehab departments to deliver traditional therapy care, we also know that traditional care has its challenges with patient access and clinic capacity.  Pathways provides a system-level platform to reach more of their low to moderate acuity patients, patients with barriers to care, and patients who are looking for a digital experience with high-quality clinical care. Some of the key differences are:

1. 1. Pathways is supporting the whole system with initiatives to improve access to MSK care and managing the cost of care, while HEP is strictly a Rehab/Therapy solution.
   2. Pathways delivers standardized programs - which even rehab groups have expressed a need for - to make life easier for clinicians and enable better outcomes reporting. HEP delivers highly customizable program building for the highest complexity patients.
   3. The Pathways platform is patient centered, with a focus on activating and engaging patients throughout their care journey.
   4. Pathways will have new functionality not available in HEP to do all the above - like Motion Capture, PROs, Triage, RTM, and more

Are you continuing to enhance the HEP & RTM products?

Our existing HEP and RTM platform will continue to be maintained, as these products support thousands of clinicians and millions of patients today and will continue to serve them going forward. While we are continuing to evaluate ways to improve our HEP platform, RTM with HEP will see no more enhancements going forward. All RTM improvements will be completed with Pathways, as it's digital-first build and patient-centered approach offer more value to customers looking to implement RTM in their department or clinic.

We want to move towards digital care but are unsure how. Does Medbridge offer anything to help us prepare for this and train our staff?

We’ve recently launched our Digital Health Academy, which is great content that can help your transition to a digital care structure. We highly recommend having your clinicians take the courses so they can see the benefits of digital care, how to communicate with patients, and how to get the most out of the Medbridge platform.

Are you planning on using your own clinicians or ours?

Medbridge believes in the partnership with our providers first. We are building this solution to be an extension of your staff, not a replacement for them. We will never outsource this nor disintermediate  the patient-provider relationship you have built.

Do patients need to download a mobile app? Does this work on Medbridge GO?

No, Pathways is available to patients through a web app, that is optimized for mobile devices. What we’ve learned through discovery is that many patients are experiencing app fatigue in Healthcare, so we believe that this offers a more desired and easier to use experience for patients.

Pathways Content & Program Design

About Pathways

Can providers make modifications to a Pathway?

While Pathways are standardized, providers will have the ability to personalize Pathways to meet patients needs. Each protocol will have a set of exercises which providers can choose from to swap or replace as needed. This offers the flexibility needed for providers to individualize treatment, while still maintaining a level of standardization for reporting outcomes. For example, if a patient shows good knee strength, but weak ankle strength, a clinician may replace a knee strengthening exercise with an ankle exercise. In addition, programs will evolve based on patient feedback, providing the option to swap for easier or harder exercises, add exercises with equipment, and more.

How are Pathways programs and protocols designed and built?

Every Pathway program goes through an extensive clinical rigor process using a variety of expertise and sources. These include:

1. Evidence-based Research - We perform an extensive clinical research literature review of the most up-to-date research. This includes clinical practice guidelines, systematic reviews, randomized controlled trials from the past 5 years, large-scale retrospective studies, and qualitative research studies.
2. Internal Clinical Expertise - Pathways are scoped, developed, and built by clinical experts with over 35 years of hands-on experience treating and supporting patients across the entirety of MSK conditions. Learn more about our medical expert partners.
3. Medical Review Board - All exercise and education protocols are consulted on, reviewed by, and approved by our multidisciplinary Medical Advisory Board. We also consult with multiple clinical subject matter experts for specialty areas, such as Fall Prevention, to ensure our exercise and education are clinically rigorous. Learn more about our Medical Advisory Board.
4. Medbridge Proprietary Data - In addition to our clinical expertise and medical review board, our exercise protocols are informed by proprietary data from our HEP Product which had over 13 million programs assigned to patients last year. This includes which exercises are most widely prescribed to patients for each given condition.

We are monitoring utilization, engagement, and outcomes across all of our Pathways programs to allow us to continuously improve and fine-tune our research.

How do patients progress in a Pathway?

The standard approach for Pathways is that patients can progress through their phased program at their own pace. These phases have a minimum length of time which varies by program.

In the future, Pathways will provide clinicians with the option to turn off this self-paced progression and require the clinician to be the one to progress a patient.

What programs does Pathways support today? Are there plans for future expansion?

Today, Pathways supports Conservative MSK care conditions, and Fall Prevention for older adults who are low/medium fall risk. Under our Conservative MSK care program, we support a variety of conditions that cover the entire body.

Later this year we are expanding to include Pelvic Health and incontinence care for patients of all sexes, and Surgical programs with a focus on pre and post-op care. We have several other programs under consideration for 2025, including expansion of our Pelvic Health program to support prenatal and postnatal care.

Pathways Features & Capabilities

Motion Capture

Where is Motion Capture utilized in Pathways?

Motion Capture is used in Pathways assessments for the conditions in which it will provide the most clinical value (Low back pain, Falls, Rotator Cuff pathology, Knee osteoarthritis, Hip osteoarthritis, non-arthritic Hip Pain, Patellofemoral pain, Pre and Post-operative total knee and total hip arthroplasty, and more.) We believe these deliver the highest value to providers, giving deeper understanding into patient abilities to track progress, personalize programs, and collect objective measures in remote or hybrid care programs.

We are exploring other ways to bring Motion Capture to Pathways.

What is the value of Motion Capture in Pathways?

Medbridge Motion Capture uses 3D computer technology to capture and analyze the body as it actually moves. Most other offerings today only capture in 2D, which struggles to analyze things like rotation. In addition to 3D assessment, our technology captures 56 body data points that are within 90% accuracy of lab-grade motion capture. The motion capture technology we use is trusted by brands such as the MLB (Major League Baseball) to analyze athlete movement, and is recognized by the National Safety Council for its innovative approach to musculoskeletal injury risk prevention.

For providers, Motion Capture delivers a deeper understanding of patients' movement abilities beyond what the naked eye can see. With new data and insights, providers can personalize programs and see progress better than ever before.

Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs)

What type of outcomes will you be monitoring, i.e. pain, function, etc.?

Medbridge Pathways uses industry-approved, evidence-based Patient Reported Outcomes frameworks for assessments. These assessments go beyond just movements, measuring pain interference, physical function, and social activity satisfaction to measure the impact of MSK pain on a patient's life. Assessments are done via surveys, as well as Motion Capture technology which provides detailed data points on patients' movement ability.

How often will you be monitoring or sending assessments to the patient?

Patients receive a weekly assessment where they are asked about pain, function, overall improvement, red flags, NPS satisfaction, and readiness for progression. Patients will also have the ability to take a weekly motion capture assessment.

Digital Triage

Where does Pathways triage fit into our workflow?

Our digital triage tool offers the flexibility to fit where you need it. Whether that is used within your rehab department to triage their referral list, placed on an E-Visit or website page to route patients, or all of the above. Our goal with triage is not to get every patient into a digital program but to give providers the tools to get patients to the right level of care.

RTM

How will RTM be implemented into Pathways?

RTM will be a part of Pathways. We see RTM as part of a larger digital care strategy for systems, offering a new source of revenue for Rehab teams while encouraging digital engagement from clinicians. RTM will be available for both independent and hybrid programs later this year. 

Integrations

What integrations are offered?

Pathways can be directly integrated with Epic and MyChart.

Reporting

What type of analytics do you expect to have within the platform?

Providers will get access to a host of analytics around patient engagement, progress, outcomes, and satisfaction. You will also get deep analytics from our Motion Capture technology and be able to review patient videos, which can be used to review progress and personalize programs as needed.

Patients will be able to track their own progress within Pathways so they can see their improvement and stay focused on their goals.

Pathways Workflows

How do you enroll patients into a Pathway?

How patients are enrolled really depends on your desired workflow. The ideal state is using Medbridge’s triage tool at your patient access points, whether that is a call center, patient portal, or E-visit site, where they can either be directly sent to an independent program or directed to therapy. But you can also use Pathways to triage your Rehab referral list, gaining an understanding of their acuity.

How patients are enrolled is all digital, either via a QR code, text message, or email.

What is onboarding like? Is it personalized?

When patients enroll in their Pathway, they will be shown an onboarding walk-through to familiarize themselves with their condition, why they were assigned this, and some of the Pathways functionality. They will then be asked to complete their initial assessment, which will serve as a baseline for pain and functional ability.

Can a patient be enrolled in multiple pathways? As an example - low back & knee at the same time?

Clinicians are unable to create multiple pathways for the same patient at this time.

Pricing & Packaging

Is Pathways included in any current subscriptions?

No - Pathways is an entirely new product and subscription separate from our current offerings.