Integrated and Digitally Supported Care on Patient Pathways from Prehabilitation to Rehabilitation
Prehab2Rehab is a two-year research project led by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital Health and Prevention, with Dr. Jan Smeddinck as the Principal Investigator and Consortium Lead, focusing on integrated and digitally supported care on patient pathways from prehabilitation to rehabilitation.
Visit the Prehab2Rehab website.
Schematic Concept for the Prehab2Rehab Patient Journey from Prehabilitation to Rehabilitation
The Prehab2Rehab project aims to develop integrated approaches for prehabilitation-to-rehabilitation care pathways and to make them more efficient through the use of digital health technologies.
Aims and Motivation
Despite significant advances in surgical care and associated reductions in morbidity and mortality, challenges remain, particularly with older and less fit patients. Prehabilitation, a multimodal intervention before planned surgery, has already shown promise in many medical use cases, but is not widely employed in most countries (including Austria).
The project investigates three medical use cases (knee replacement, liver and gallbladder surgery, and cardiac surgery) to establish how prehabilitation can be implemented with an integrated perspective on heterogeneous patient pathways and how digital technologies can support patients throughout their healthcare journey.
Key Objectives
Patient Pathway Analysis: Identification and optimization of typical touchpoints between patients and the healthcare system through direct stakeholder involvement.
Technology Development: Development of a specific technology mix to accompany the entire patient pathway from prehabilitation to rehabilitation, including telehealth, monitoring systems, and digital platforms for patient data.
Feasibility Studies: Prototypical establishment and evaluation of prehabilitation and pathway-accompanying digital support in selected clinical use cases.
Health Economic Evaluation: Comprehensive assessment of economic and health policy implications of the integrated Prehab2Rehab strategy.
Industrial Application: Preparation of the developed technologies for market implementation, including technical refinement and integration into existing systems.
Innovation
The innovative core of the project lies in the path-accompanying connection of prehabilitation and rehabilitation using digital technologies. This enables individual, data-driven support that bridges previous gaps in patient care.
For patients, improvements in quality of life and a reduction in postoperative complications are expected. For the healthcare system, there are potentially significant cost savings. The project partners benefit from the initiation of new, innovative products and services.
Through systematic analysis and feasibility studies, Prehab2Rehab establishes a foundation for implementing and scaling this approach across the Austrian healthcare system and beyond.
This project is funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) under the Life Sciences 24-26 program.