With the BioSleeve, Cipher Skin Eliminates the Admin Burden for Physical Therapists
Physical therapists and athletic trainers are under ever-increasing pressure to get more done in less time. They must apply a wide range of complex methods to accomplish a simple outcome: help people feel and perform better.
Over the past several decades, administrative tasks have eaten up a disproportionate amount of time from the day of a typical healthcare provider. Looking at healthcare in general, the US leads the world in administrative costs. In the US, around 30% of healthcare costs are administrative, twice that of Canada. Within a given workday, physical therapists have less time to help people feel and perform better because so much of their day is allocated to administrative tasks instead of working with patients. This admin burden means that therapists have to do more multi-tasking to keep up, especially in smaller clinics. They must constantly alternate between processing data and doing hands-on work.
This multi-tasking has a wide range of negative effects, such as:
- Lowered productivity and efficiency
- Impaired working memory and long-term memory
- Decreased gray matter in areas related to regulation of emotion and motivation, as well as cognitive control
- Increased distractibility
- Increased symptoms of depression and anxiety
Every time a test like a star excursion balance test (SEBT) is performed, multiple numbers have to be written down, analyzed, entered into a computer, and compared to past tests in order to identify trends. Every step of this process has the potential for error. A therapist can easily spend more time dealing with the data generated by a test than performing the test itself. If we look at the SEBT in particular, the patient typically does three rounds of the star per leg, and the therapist must capture every number and keep track of it. That works out to 48 different numbers, which must then be transcribed, processed, and analyzed. It’s a lot of admin work, and every second spent poring over a spreadsheet is less time that can be spent with the patient and actually helping them.
Cipher Skin aims to eliminate as much of this admin burden as possible. By automatically capturing and processing data, therapists no longer have to scribble numbers on a clipboard and keep track of countless sheets of paper in order to eventually process and transcribe them. All of that information, such as the scores from a star excursion balance test, can be automatically captured, processed, and stored without taking up the therapist’s time, energy, and attention.
This frees up valuable time and energy, reduces multi-tasking, and enables therapists to spend more of their day doing what they do best: Helping people.
