By Allison Proffitt

August 6, 2019 | Computer vision is finding useful applications in post-acute care, says Tony Zhang, CEO of BlueJay Health. BlueJay's AI-enabled telehealth platform is taking on post-surgical rehabilitation and providing at-home accountability and assessment for recovering patients.

BlueJay started about five years ago, Zhang told Clinical Research News, with a vision to create a continuum for patients between surgery and full recovery. "Patients, when they are discharged and between clinic visits, they are home and a lot of the patients don't take care of themselves very well. For example, they should do home exercises, they should do certain rehabilitation tasks. They either forget or they simply don't know." The consequences can be severe: sometimes additional surgeries or long-term physical limitations.

BlueJay wanted to reach those patients with telehealth. The company started by creating an extensive library of home exercise videos—4,000—that physicians can prescribe to their patients for recovery. While useful, the videos didn't give physicians any way to assess or measure patient outcomes. Video calls, or telehealth, was a more interactive option but wasn't quantitative.

"When you are on a video call, how do you assess people's movement, quantitate people's movement? The current, common video call platform—FaceTime—doesn't give you that kind of outcomes assessment," Zhang said. "In many cases there's a need for collaborative care. For instance, a PT might work with a surgeon to assess a patient." But how do the PT and surgeon measure progress?

With the need in mind, Zhang says the company searched within Silicon Valley and licensed an algorithm that would allow for quantitative video assessment. "The therapist or doctor can measure the range of motion remotely and collect outcomes in real time. The key for this technology is for the camera on the cell phone or computer to recognize people's joints regardless of the clothes they are wearing or the background they are in," Zhang explains. BlueJay's platform can now recognize people's range of motion accurately and measure it in real time.

The platform has been tested by the Colorado Integrative Care Network, a value-based care organization in Denver. Zhang reports that patient visits were decreased by 40% thanks to the tool, saving money. The BlueJay platform is being used in more than 100 clinics with 30,000 patients, Zhang says.

BlueJay just announced a partnership with BetterPT, a three-year-old company that provides connectivity between physical therapists, patients, and physicians.

The partnership enables patients needing physical therapy to quickly access care through BetterPT's platform and healthcare providers to provide better care through BlueJay's AI-powered patient engagement. With BetterPT's interoperable application, patients can find clinics in their local area that best fit their needs, accept their insurance and immediately request an appointment, all with a few clicks.  BetterPT's inbound patient management (IPM) solution offers operational efficiencies to clinics, helping to cut down administrative burden and paperwork.

BlueJay's technology facilitates online patient and provider engagement, including PT assessments, treatment programs, and outcomes tracking, as well as interdisciplinary coordination to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs.

Greg Peters, CEO of BetterPT, hopes that the partnership will help patients and their physicians assess progress made through physical therapy—a feedback loop he says is often broken.

"What we're trying to provide is also that ability to make that analysis, not only through the PT's eyes, but also through the eyes of the patient, and allow that feedback to take place with the physician," Peters said. "It's a different paradigm. That feedback loop… is where this whole thing falls apart."

The two companies plan to start recruiting patients soon and launch the connected offering this fall.

"The goal for our partnership is really to present the healthcare community a single solution. It doesn't exist today," Peters said. "Patients and healthcare consumers deserve one platform to go through this process. Hopefully this is the beginning."