IncludeHealth announces a partnership with Yale New Haven Health System (YNHHS) to transform care for patients with musculoskeletal health conditions. The partnership aims to deliver a hybrid MSK care model for all YNHHS patients. The care model combines Yale New Haven Health’s in-person orthopedic services with IncludeHealth’s Musculoskeletal Operating System (MSK-OS) to deliver virtual physical therapy in patients’ homes.

The MSK-OS is a hardware-free, device-agnostic platform that combines body tracking technology with proprietary clinical intelligence and tools. This platform allows YNHHS clinicians to offer patients an interactive virtual home exercise program to supplement in-person services, with patient progress monitored and care plans adjusted remotely. This hybrid model is applicable to a wide range of patients, including those undergoing surgery, suffering from chronic pain, and those engaging in outpatient physical therapy. 

The partnership kicked off in early 2022 at Yale New Haven Hospital with clinicians and patients.

IncludeHealth built its MSK-OS platform in collaboration with Google and early clinical partners who helped test and refine the model. Throughout 2021-22, the technology has been deployed in a wide range of clinical settings with physical therapy, orthopedics, and health systems partners. It features an intuitive interface that supports full body treatment and a tailored approach to clinical workflow integration. Clinicians can prescribe a plan in “one click,” and patients can engage in their care at home using any device with a front-facing camera. 

Compared to virtual-only MSK solutions which have become popular recently, this model allows a patient’s clinical team to decide how and when to incorporate virtual care as part of the treatment plan. Such a model ensures that proper clinical judgement is exercised when prescribing virtual care and includes close interval follow-up from the doctor and therapist to ensure it is effective and safe. 

MSK-OS is a HIPAA -mpliant cloud-based digital platform. Clinicians have real-time access to each patient’s objective, measured movement data, giving them the ability to track and manage patients beyond the clinic. The platform also supports synchronous and asynchronous patient-clinician interaction so that adjustments can be made to a patient’s care plan at any time. 

“We are grateful to partner with such a well-respected clinical organization as Yale New Haven Health,” says Ryan Eder, CEO of IncludeHealth. “We are strong believers in a hybrid model of care, putting our technology in the hands of a patient’s trusted provider to strengthen the patient-clinician relationship. We look forward to the impact this will have on patient access and outcomes.”