Enhanced Recovery Program
The TAC developed an Enhanced Recovery Program to advance the quality of care and improve outcomes for TAC clients. Running between July 2023 and April 2024, the program was an innovative new way for the TAC and physiotherapists to work together.
During the initial phase of the program, a small cohort of TAC clients and physiotherapists participated to allow for refinement of the process. This iterative approach was used to help ensure the program's effectiveness and pave the way for broader implementation in the future.
The program took up to 12 weeks, depending on the client’s needs. During treatment, the client was asked to complete a questionnaire four times in an online platform, ZEDOC, developed by digital health company The Clinician.
Client responses helped the physiotherapist and the TAC:
- understand how the injury affected the client at the start and over the course of treatment
- deliver treatment tailored to the client’s individual needs
- identify any issues that could impact the client long-term, so they could take steps early to address them
This information also gave insights on the most effective treatment options to help future TAC clients.
The reason we developed the Enhanced Recovery Pathway is a lot of our clients are struggling with their recovery due to two key themes and that’s really largely around their pain and their mental health.
We thought that if we intervened earlier with these clients and offered them a different pathway of healthcare that we could somehow impact their recovery journey in a more positive way.
One of the things that we did was introduce a digital enabler tool. So what that helps the clinician understand is where are this person’s risks?
We decided to apply to become part of the Enhanced Recovery Program. By participating in the pilot we hoped to get some insight into this innovative new technology and online platform and to expose our practitioners to the opportunity of using that platform in a fairly unique way.
The way the online platform identified the risk factors really helped our practitioners to individualise their treatment, to target those risk factors.
The clients when they came in, when they saw the online platform and they saw the way that the practitioners were able to use that to individualise their treatment and ultimately deliver more effective treatment they very quickly came on board.
So with that pilot the critical part of that is we totally co-designed that with clients and providers. So the outcomes that we’re measuring have been decided by our clients. They’ve told us what’s really important to them.
And we’re seeing some clients have some really good health outcomes with their mental health and how they manage their pain. Or how little it’s interfering in their daily functioning and lives after the programs.
Tracking and measuring outcomes
The Enhanced Recovery Program, co-designed with TAC clients and providers, used the ZEDOC platform to collect information about a client’s health outcomes and experiences.
The platform rapidly analysed the client’s responses to targeted questions using validated patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) and patient reported experience measures (PREMs).
These informed the physiotherapist’s clinical decisions and assist them to deliver relevant communication and educational materials to the client.
The TAC’s collaboration with The Clinician builds upon the success of other organisations that have benefited from The Clinician’s technology platform and implementation experience. These include Victoria’s Department of Health, South Australia’s Department for Health and South Australia’s Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health.
One of the exciting initiatives in the Enhanced Recovery Pathway is that we partnered with The Clinician and adopted their ZEDOC platform to support us with digital collection of risk screening and outcome measures.
And so what we’re doing now is with The Clinician is clients are able to enter their outcome scores on their device, so usually their phone, and within seconds the clinician in the treating rooms, and the client, can see that outcome score on a desktop, on a laptop, on their phone.
So what that helps the clinician understand is where are this person’s risks?
We’re seeing clients access built in clinical support tools so that clinicians have the ability to have conversations with clients that they may not have had previously, and also to have those conversations with TAC claims staff to alert us whether or not that there is a risk that we haven’t identified yet so that then we can intervene and support the client with their recovery.
Client participation
A TAC client’s eligibility for the Enhanced Recovery Program was based on factors such as type of injury and the time since their accident.
Over the course of the program, clients were asked to complete a questionnaire within the ZEDOC platform four times – at the start, middle, end and after completion of the program. An SMS message prompted them to complete the questionnaire, which they could do on their own device in the comfort of their home. Each questionnaire takes about 20 minutes. Clients could save their answers and return to the questions later, and they could skip any questions that they didn't wish to answer.
Participation in the program was entirely optional. There was no cost to the client.
Driving a value-based healthcare approach
The Enhanced Recovery Program is one of several TAC initiatives to develop a value-based healthcare approach, focused on delivering superior outcomes, improved patient experiences, and enhanced value for all stakeholders. We are committed to sharing findings from these ground-breaking programs and will provide regular updates on their progress.
Learn more about the TAC’s value-based healthcare approach at tac.vic.gov.au/vbhc
