Podiatrist Ricky Lee is trialling Cemplicity’s patient experience pilot program to capture patient experience insights – not only immediately after the appointment but also between appointments.
Ricky plans to leverage these insights to improve patient outcomes. In doing so, Ricky plans to work towards a longer-term goal of patient-led self-reporting via digitally integrated, multi-access reporting platforms.
Ricky will share his experiences in STRIDE at the end of this pilot experience in mid-2024.
Ricky Lee’s interest in podiatry was sparked early on, with both parents working as podiatrists. Now, having been a podiatrist for over a decade, Ricky runs six clinics across Canberra, alongside being an active member of the Australian Podiatry Association (APodA); serving on various boards and in regional council roles.
“I’m excited to see the career of podiatry grow and expand”, explains Ricky when asked about his feelings towards the profession. With this mindset, Ricky has set his sights on finding new ways alongside the APodA to measure the patient experience to improve patient outcomes.
Enter Cemplicity: “Experts in capturing the voice of the patient in terms of experience, outcomes and symptom tracking,” states Paul Millet, spokesperson for Cemplicity. “Our mission is to improve the lives of patients, one question at a time.”
Cemplicity seeks to capture Patient Experience Reported Measures (PREMS), “Through validated survey questions that capture the intrinsic experience measures that can only come from the patient,” explains Paul. “These insights measure the quality of care, communication, engagement and overall experience.”
To learn more about the fast-growing world of patient-centered measurements such as PREMS, catch up on this STRIDE article, ‘How to measure patient-centred care’.
Over the next six months, Ricky will curate and share key insights with his practice’s patients; to track their experiences more comprehensively in real-time.
Ricky’s explains his reasons for sharing his practice’s experiences of this pilot program with fellow podiatrists. “We want to do this to progress our profession,” Ricky says. “If I can trial this approach – to learn what works and what doesn’t – and share it here in STRIDE, then hopefully it will save time for more podiatrists in the long run.”
At the centre of this goal, Ricky is keen to access previously unavailable patient insights. “It is the time outside the clinic after the patient’s appointment where we are missing important data: how they feel after they leave the clinic. Whereas in a consult, a patient will only provide a certain amount of information. As podiatrists we are trained to try and get as much information as we can and formulate a treatment plan from there, however, we are currently only getting relatively small patient insights to base this on. It is this information that we look forward to seeing.”
Ricky shares his further thoughts behind this goal. “By accessing this information, we will be able to capture more insight into the patient’s life and experiences away from the consult, helping us improve the patient’s outcomes and overall experience. If we can learn more about each patient between our consults – such as self-reported pain levels – then we are already ahead before their next appointment to further improve their experience and outcomes.”
This pilot provides an exciting starting point for Ricky to build on an even bigger picture. “Beyond this pilot project, the longer-term goal is to have a digital platform through which we can track patients between consults and after discharge. We need to be careful with this of course, but the simple act of patients recording their health updates – and therefore focusing more on their health – is likely to improve patient outcomes.”
Taking this vision even further, Ricky reflects on the benefits of multidisciplinary teams having shared access to such a patient experience digital platform in the longer term, beyond this pilot.
“A digital platform can invite in a far more team-orientated approach, where we’re all working in the same direction to get the same outcome. Again, this is where patient partnerships come into focus,” explains Ricky.
This Cemplicity-enabled pilot project is well-positioned to kickstart these goals. Ricky shares his belief that the very discipline of patients self-reporting through these surveys immediately opens more opportunities for self-reflection and empowerment. “If we can bring the patients on their journey, their outcomes will be a lot better. We may also start to see how we are performing as a practice and where we can improve,” he says.
“At the end of this six-month period, I want to be able to return to fellow podiatrists and say: ‘Here are the results. We know how this works. This is how you can implement patient experience measures across your systems to make this a much easier process’ explains Ricky.”
However, Ricky cautions that a healthy dose of realism is required to manage everyone’s expectations from the outset. “These surveys are initially designed to be anonymous, which to be honest, limits the extent of patient insights we can gain. I have no doubt many other practices already send out versions of patient experience surveys, so this is not new within itself. Yet this is not the end goal, it is a starting point to help shape future PREM-based digital projects over a much longer period. Described as ‘the foundation of a high reliability healthcare system’, patient-centered measurements are here to stay, and podiatry is well-placed to lead the way”, he says.
The essence is all in the timing, says Ricky. “These measurements represent the future of healthcare as we know it, and other countries have already started this evolution of this process. We’ve got to jump on board, and we’ve got to be prepared for it. I don’t know many other disciplines within allied health who are doing similar, and we have an opportunity here within podiatry. We’ve got to be ahead of the game, and to do that, we need to get prepared and learn together – starting now.”
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