Reducing hospital visits after knee joint replacement: Move, Visualise, Tailor

Knee osteoarthritis imposes a substantial burden on individuals and our health care system. Annually, 30.000 people in the Netherlands receive a knee joint replacement as the end treatment of their osteoarthritis. Post-operative treatment is unfortunately still ineffective in about 20% of cases and result in dissatisfaction, pain, or impairments for as long as one year after surgery. These patients end up requiring more and costly hospital visits and prolonged rehabilitation with physical therapists.  

In MOVITA (Move, Visualize, Tailor), we develop a solution to remotely assess, store, and visualize an OA patient’s daily-life physical behaviour to monitor progression without costly hospital visits. Objective assessment and visualization of daily-life physical behaviour and gait quality using new wearable technology will facilitate effectiveness in prognostics and treatment of these patients, while minimizing required care and optimizing patient satisfaction.  

Scientifically validated algorithms based on wearable technology will be professionalized and integrated in a cloud-based platform with an attractive user-interface, co-created with end-users. Field tests will reveal potential pitfalls and unforeseen requirements, further supporting the iterative developmental process. The resultant minimal viable product allows orthopaedic surgeons and physiotherapists to remotely assess and visualize functional recovery of their patients, enabling a tailormade postoperative treatment. Business case development in collaboration with stakeholders will ensure uptake of MOVITA as an effective, affordable and beneficial medical device.  

A minimal viable product, consisting of a full automated data-pipeline (see fig 1.), was developed, implemented, and tested in the two participating healthcare institutions. Around 20 knee OA-patients were successfully monitored before surgery, 6 weeks and 3 months after surgery. Their outcomes were visualised in a dashboard directly accessible by the orthopedic surgeon through the electronic health record. User experiences were collected and a plan for further use within the healthcare path for knee OA patients was constructed.

Fig 1. Schematic diagram of the data-pipeline of MOVITA successfully implemented in the two healthcare institutions.