Ep. 35: New models of rehabilitation through technology and gaming with Ted Spooner
In this episode of Surviving Healthcare, you will hear one way technology and health are partnering to achieve better outcomes. My guest for this episode is Ted Spooner. Ted is the co-founder and CEO of Respondwell, one of the best and most-honored physical rehabilitation software companies in the country. RespondWell is a leader in the area of fitness gaming and telerehabilitation. Ted is one of the best possible experts to talk with regarding the use of technology in the healthcare field.
As you listen, you will hear a general discussion of Respondwell and how it evolved from a fitness gaming company, making games for the Xbox, to a company that used the knowledge gained from that endeavor to a company that uses modern technology to achieve better outcomes in healthcare. Included in this discussion is the difference between preventive and prescriptive rehabilitation and why both are important.
You will also hear a fascinating discussion of the various needs people have for different types of therapy and how technology can make it easier to engage in therapeutic activity that can prevent certain problems from occurring in the first place. That leads to the discussion of the biggest difference between healthcare and other markets.
You will hear why the future of healthcare seems to be in the hands of patients more so than physicians and insurance companies, and how that may look in the future. This, the liveliest part of the discussion, demonstrates the learning process that Mr. Spooner and his team have gone through and how they make technology work for both the patient and the physical therapist. We discuss the importance of communication in the rehabilitation process and how the Respondwell facilitates that.
We then talk about the various payment strategies available to both the patient and the physical therapist, and which ones are most likely to work best. The discussion then evolves into a more general discussion of them gaming aspects of physical therapy and how that may change in the future. It follows a typical game model, which can include:
- The need to achieve a goal, based on an engagement model;
- The need to establish a relationship between the “coach” and the player through “personification” technology;
- The need to create an ultimate expectation for the therapy and;
- A reward based on what the user finds important.
Ted explains all of this in great detail and I believe you will find it fascinating. We discuss the importance of the interactive abilities of the technology to patients and physical therapists. And that leads to one of the biggest challenges as technology infiltrates healthcare, which is the importance of the data collected
The future of healthcare is already here, in many ways, and this episode of the podcast gives us a glimpse of that future and how that may look.
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