Curovate has always been focused on providing accessible physical therapy to people in their homes and this is why we are partnering with VHA Home HealthCare (VHA). VHA is a not-for-profit charitable organization that offers 24/7 healthcare and support services in the home and community to people of all ages across Ontario. VHA was formed in 1925 and today has over 3000 team members including personal support workers, nurses, dietitians, occupational therapists, social workers, speech language pathologist and physiotherapists who are leading the future of health and independence at home.
The clinical and research collaboration between Curovate and VHA will consist of working with VHA clients to provide at-home digital physical therapy. Curovate is a digital health company that provides mobile application (app) based at-home physical therapy for people who are awaiting or recovering from knee replacements, hip replacements, or anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery. In addition, Curovate also provides rehabilitation for people who suffer from knee osteoarthritis, hip osteoarthritis and those who wish to strengthen their knees and hips to prevent injuries and surgeries. Select VHA clients will be provided with access to the Curovate app for a full year to help them with their recovery as part of our initial pilot project.
The purpose of our collaborative pilot project is to better understand the needs of people who are recovering at home after injury or surgery. VHA and Curovate will collect critical patient reported outcome measures, and conduct qualitative interviews to understand the perceived benefits and barriers to utilizing an at-home mobile app for daily rehabilitation. The findings of this pilot study will be openly accessible and disseminated so that other home care agencies and people who are recovering at home can learn from our experience. Once our pilot study is completed I will write a follow-up blog and post it on our Curovate blog so our readers can learn about how Curovate was utilized in collaboration with VHA Home HealthCare.
How will people benefit from this collaboration between VHA and Curovate?
Improved access to publicly funded physical therapy
There is a lack of access to publicly funded physical therapy in Ontario. This problem is not unique to Ontario or to Canada as people in many countries have limited or no access to critical physical therapy. In Ontario publicly funded physical therapy has been reduced since the early 1980’s and it continues to be reduced. Physical therapy is now provided by private for-profit community clinics. The major issue with this is that it leaves a large segment of our population without access to physical therapy and therefore results in poor health outcomes. The lack of access to physical therapy further disadvantages people of a lower socio-economic status, racialized people and Indigenous people all of whom already have poor access to physical therapy. If you want to learn more about exactly how little publicly funded physical therapy there is for people in Canada read our previous blog. We have also written a blog about the poor access to health care for Indigenous populations. Curovate’s current collaboration with VHA will help to improve the accessibility of physical therapy in Ontario.
People with mobility issues can access ongoing physical therapy in their home
One of the major issues with access to physical therapy is the need to travel to seek out in-person care. Many people after surgery or injury are not able to drive and find it very challenging to use public transit. Using Curovate, a person can access all of their daily physical therapy exercise videos, track their rehabilitation progress and have their physical therapy questions answered through our in-app chat. By providing a person with everything they need, our collaboration will make it possible for VHA clients to continue their rehabilitation at home.
Measure real time progress with the Curovate app
One of the reasons to seek out in-person physical therapy after a major surgery or injury is to make sure that you are making progress. Everyone wants to know that they are improving but the issue with traditional physical therapy is that you must see an in-person physical therapist to track your progress. This is both time consuming and unnecessary. Simple measures such as knee and hip range of motion can now be measured with the Curovate app. Typically, a physical therapist utilizes a protractor type tool called a goniometer to measure how much a person’s knee or hip bends and straightens. This measure, also called range of motion, is an excellent indicator of a person's progress or limitations. With Curovate, using nothing more than your mobile device, you can measure your knee or hip range of motion at home in 60 seconds. Watch the video in our previous blog to learn about how you can use Curovate to measure your knee range of motion. One common question we often get about Curovate’s knee range of motion measurement is how accurate is this app measurement? The short answer is very accurate! You can read all about our peer-reviewed pilot study that demonstrated a correlation of 0.99 or better across 4 different mobile devices and one licensed physical therapist measuring knee range of motion. In collaboration with VHA we are bringing reliable knee and hip range of motion measurements into people’s homes.
Conclusion
On a personal note, as the founder of Curovate and a licensed physical therapist, publicly funded and accessible physical therapy is very important to me and the main reason I founded Curovate. This collaboration with VHA in support of their purpose of Care at home. Delivered with heart. Led by science., is the perfect partnership for Curovate. I have ambitiously stated that the vision of Curovate is to make physical therapy affordable and accessible to everyone who needs it globally and this partnership with VHA helps us stay consistent with that vision. Once our pilot project is completed I will provide the outcomes and lessons learned in a future blog.
You can learn more about VHA Home HealthCare and get in touch by visiting this link. If you want to complete your own at-home rehabilitation and you would like the type of access and benefits you have read about here please download Curovate from one of our links below.
If you need further customized assistance during your surgery or injury recovery check out our Virtual Physical Therapy page to book your 1-on-1 video session with a physical therapist.
