A Technology-Enabled Concussion Care Pathway Reduces Costs and Enhances Care

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Health Services Research
• Rehabilitation Medicine

Background:

• Standardizing care improves outcomes and reduces costs, but concussion management is fragmented across disciplines.
• A gap exists in effectively utilizing rehabilitation services for concussion patients.
• Current concussion care pathways often lead to disparate patient experiences and suboptimal resource allocation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize changes in healthcare utilization after implementing a concussion carepath.
• To conduct an economic evaluation of patient charges following the carepath implementation.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective cohort study analyzing electronic medical and financial records (N=3937) from 2010-2016.
• Individuals aged 18-45 with a primary concussion diagnosis were included.
• Compared encounter length, resource utilization, and charges pre- and post-carepath implementation.

Main Results:

• Concussion diagnoses increased by 385% (2010-2015), with physical therapy utilization rising from 9% to 20%.
• Time to physical therapy referral decreased significantly from 72 to 23 days post-injury.
• Emergency medicine and imaging utilization decreased, resulting in a 20.7% reduction in median patient charges.

Conclusions:

• The concussion carepath successfully optimized clinical practice, ensuring continuity of care and appropriate resource utilization.
• Effective handoffs to physical therapy and standardized data collection via technology were crucial for success.
• Standardized care improved patient outcomes without compromising quality, demonstrating the value of a structured approach.