title: Use of eHealth technologies to enable the implementation of musculoskeletal Models of Care: Evidence and practice.
abstract: Musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions are the second leading cause of morbidity-related burden of disease globally. EHealth is a potentially critical factor that enables the implementation of accessible, sustainable and more integrated MSK models of care (MoCs). MoCs serve as a vehicle to drive evidence into policy and practice through changes at a health system, clinician and patient level. The use of eHealth to implement MoCs is intuitive, given the capacity to scale technologies to deliver system and economic efficiencies, to contribute to sustainability, to adapt to low-resource settings and to mitigate access and care disparities. We follow a practice-oriented approach to describing the 'what' and 'how' to harness eHealth in the implementation of MSK MoCs. We focus on the practical application of eHealth technologies across care settings to those MSK conditions contributing most substantially to the burden of disease, including osteoarthritis and inflammatory arthritis, skeletal fragility-associated conditions and persistent MSK pain.
authors.affiliation: School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Science, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia. Electronic address: H.Slater@curtin.edu.au.
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Slater
authors.affiliation: eCentreClinic, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, NSW, Australia. Electronic address: blake.dear@mq.edu.au.
authors.forename: Blake F
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Dear
authors.affiliation: Health and Biomedical Informatics Centre, The University of Melbourne, VIC, Australia. Electronic address: merollim@unimelb.edu.au.
authors.forename: Mark A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Merolli
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Therapy, University of British Columbia, Arthritis Research Canada, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Electronic address: lli@arthritisresearch.ca.
authors.forename: Linda C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Science, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia. Electronic address: A.Briggs@curtin.edu.au.
authors.forename: Andrew M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Briggs
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D009140:Musculoskeletal Diseases / Q000628:therapy*; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Arthritis; Models of care; Musculoskeletal; Pain; Skeletal; Social media; Telehealth; e-Registries; eHealth; eHealth technologies