Development of a cloud-based application for the Fracture Liaison Service model of care

SUMMARY: The aims of this study are to develop a cloud-based application of the Fracture Liaison Service for practitioners to coordinate the care of osteoporotic patients after suffering primary fractures and provide a performance feedback portal for practitioners to determine quality of care. The application provides continuity of care, improved patient outcomes, and reduced medical costs. INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study is to describe the content development and functionality of a cloud-based application to broadly deploy the Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) to coordinate post-fracture care for osteoporotic patients. METHODS: The Bone Health Collaborative developed the FLS application in 2013 to support practitioners’ access to information and management of patients and provide a feedback portal for practitioners to track their performance in providing quality care. A five-step protocol (identify, inform, initiate, investigate, and iterate) organized osteoporotic post-fracture care-related tasks and timelines for the application. A range of descriptive data about the patient, their medical condition, therapies and care, and current providers can be collected. Seven quality of care measures from the National Quality Forum, The Joint Commission, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services can be tracked through the application. RESULTS: There are five functional areas including home, tasks, measures, improvement, and data. The home, tasks, and data pages are used to enter patient information and coordinate care using the five-step protocol. Measures and improvement pages are used to enter quality measures and provide practitioners with continuous performance feedback. The application resides within a portal, running on a multitenant, private cloud-based Avedis enterprise registry platform. All data are encrypted in transit and users access the application using a password from any common web browser. CONCLUSION: The application could spread the FLS model of care across the US health care system, provide continuity of care, effectively manage osteoporotic patients, improve outcomes, and reduce medical costs. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00198-015-3260-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.