Our partner publication, The O&P EDGE, is featuring an article about mobile prosthetic clinics in its new issue. Attentive readers may recall that Amplitude ran a short piece about this trend recently, noting the uptick in clinicians who are offering in-home appointments to patients who lack reliable transportation, have health conditions (besides limb loss) that impede travel, live in geographically remote areas, or face other challenges that make it difficult to get to their clinic.
That trend appears to be gathering momentum, according to an informal survey of prosthetists O&P EDGE conducted on LinkedIn last week. Nearly two-thirds of the survey participants either offer mobile service already, or consider it “the way of the future.”
“Mobile healthcare has been proven to increase access to care, drive healthcare costs down, and improve healthcare equity and overall outcomes,” noted prosthetist Eric Neufield, whose company (Agile Orthopedics) serves as the centerpiece of the EDGE article. “To me, this is what being patient-centric truly means.” Agile Orthopedics launched its mobile service in 2019 and dramatically expanded it during the height of 2020’s pandemic lockdowns. The Denver-based company offers in-home service across much of Colorado, operating six mobile vans that are fully tricked out with nearly all the gear you’d find at a brick-and-mortar clinic.
Another practitioner who responded to the LinkedIn survey noted that in-home visits enable her to serve patients who “would have fallen between the cracks had I not been there for them. There are many who are homebound and either unable to be transported safely or who feel safer and more comfortable in their own home.”
How do you find mobile prosthetic services in your area? We couldn’t find a directory anywhere, so we decided to start compiling one ourselves. This is a work in progress that we plan to update continuously, so if you see an omission please contact us ASAP at info@livingwithamplitude.com.