New healthcare technologies can help improve patient care — as well as with physicians' relationships with them — orthopedic surgeon Michael Redler, MD, said.
Dr. Redler, of Trumbull-based Connecticut Orthopaedics, joined "Becker's Spine and Orthopedic Podcast" to discuss the way technology should be leveraged to benefit the interpersonal side of healthcare.
Note: This is an edited excerpt. Listen to the full conversation here.
Question: How has the patient-provider dynamic changed over time?
Dr. Michael Redler: The challenges these days in terms of taking care of patients are in part based on economics and part based on technology. Technology has allowed us to do a lot of things in terms of investigating what's wrong with the patient. We can do ultrasound, we can do CT scans and we can do MRIs. But the most important patient interaction is one between the physician and patient, talking to each other and finding out what's going on. I think that if you stay on those basics, we're going to do much better in terms of having a patient that's going to do well.
Q: How is new technology currently affecting patient care?
MR: There's a lot more that we can do these days in terms of taking care of patients; we do more minimally invasive surgeries, we do bigger, higher acuity surgeries as an outpatient; and we have great new anesthesia options so patients can be comfortable. We have the ability to use biology to help some of these more challenging issues heal, all of which improves the overall patient outcome. What we have to do is figure out how to use all that new technology that still runs efficiently and still not create a situation where healthcare costs are out of control.
Q: How can we work smarter with new technology?
MR: I think that one of the things that we need to learn is how we actually take care of patients. What is the patient flow? If you have a patient go into the surgical center, what is going to happen every minute that patient is in the surgical center? There's a new company we've been talking to that will monitor what that patient does every step of the way during the whole surgical center experience. That'll allow us to work smarter. It'll make for better communication, and it also helps families know what's going on. If we can work more efficiently in that regard — for example, we are working with a company that does some remote monitoring when a representative is not in the room, having access to the right equipment — all that can help and all those things will help us tremendously. What also helps tremendously is a patient feeling comfortable during surgery. There are new companies coming out with a way of not only having a regional nerve block, but using neuromodulation so the patient can have a comfortable experience for up to 30 days.