Empathy in every healthcare experience.

Tech Brief

Playback Health helps organizations improve care outcomes by simplifying communication among providers, patients and families ensuring all parties have the right information, at the right place and the right time. Use of Playback has shown to affect several targeted ROI’s including raise patient satisfaction scores and hospital ratings, reduce communication errors and improve care team coordination, increase understanding and plan adherence, grow provider revenues, and reduce length of hospital stays. No other company is able to deliver the deep provider-patient connections that are facilitated on Playback’s mobile platform. We bring mobility to patient medical data, and deliver clinician empathy and compassion with our asynchronous and live communication tools. And with Playback’s API-driven mobile platform, large health systems are empowered to own their innovation and pursue a communication-first strategy, while leveraging internal technology platforms, patient portals and other systems of record. Playback Health frees healthcare to pursue a patient centric, mobile health record that sits atop systems of record and uniquely adds infinite data value to all stakeholders around patient care.

Problem Tech Solves

Effective communication is essential in any business environment; in healthcare, it is absolutely critical. Poor communication reduces the quality of care, negatively affects patient outcomes, decreases productivity, increases patient wait times and stress, significantly increases costs, and accelerates clinical burnout. Research shows that patients forget 40-80% of what they're told. This presents a huge problem when it comes to making informed decisions about healthcare. Unplanned hospital readmission costs were estimated to be $57.7 billion in 2018, affecting 82% of the hospitals reviewed, at an average cost of $15.2K per episode. CMS research points to patient knowledge, education, and engagement as significant determinants of care outcomes, including hospital readmissions. CRICO found that 30% of the medical malpractice lawsuits investigated could be attributed to communication failures. Those failures resulted in $1.7 billion in malpractice costs and almost 2,000 preventable deaths. A study conducted by the Joint Commission found that 80% of serious medical errors were the result of miscommunication between caregivers during patient handovers. And CHIDS researchers at the University of Maryland estimate that hospitals waste $12 billion annually due to poor communication. That figure is more than half of the average hospital margin of 3.6 percent. “Across all specialties and care delivery settings, miscommunication begets misinformation," according to the report. “If the systems that providers rely on to alert them to information gaps or discrepancies are inadequate, then misinformation can lead to mismanaged care, unmet expectations and patient harm."

Validation

In 2017, Dr. David Langer and his clinical team completed a 3-year, 510 patient study that showed screen-captured video recordings to explain care instructions boosted “top-box” patient experience survey scores 7-13 points for questions about patient care and hospital ratings. The overwhelmingly positive results set the stage for Playback Health. Shortly after Playback’s first launch in Q4 2019, Covid over-took Lenox Hill’s 450 beds. Playback emerged as the go-to platform to connect providers, patients, and families in critical care moments when many were unable to be in the hospital. Incredibly, it was during the pandemic that Lenox Hill recorded its best hospital-wide patient satisfaction scores in a decade. Management attributed those results largely to Playback Health. Lenox Hill Neurosurgery in Q1, 2021 saw patient satisfaction scores boost ratings to the 99-percentile for doctor communication, understanding, and overall satisfaction with care. In Glen Cove Hospital, the 150-bed rehab facility’s rankings surged an average of 23 points in Q2, 2021. Therapists report that Playback saves them up to 30 minutes every day due to fewer emails and calls with family members, and they see no gaps in patient understanding or with care plan adherence. In 2021, Cranial Technologies (Lombard, IL) improved sales conversions to 87%, a 15-point increase in the purchase of its products and services. We are planning IRB clinical studies at Stony Brook University Hospital to study Playback’s ability to reduce heart failure readmissions, and at Mount Sinai Hospital to improve patient experience, provider communication, and overall care outcomes.