The company recently launched VantaStat, which provides appointments to orthopedic surgeons and specialists within 48 hours. 

But reducing the barrier to entry for orthopedic care is not the only goal the program has, according to Nicholas Grosso, MD, president of MedVanta, as well as The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics. 

Dr. Grosso recently connected with Becker’s about the launch of VantaStat and how it fits in the bigger puzzle of expanding orthopedic care and technology to other groups across the U.S. 

Note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length. 

Question: What went into the creation and development of VantaStat? How will it improve patient care?

Dr. Nicholas Grosso: At MedVanta, we wanted to build a suite of IT-based solutions that we could put together in a logical fashion across a platform. The first one we came up with that we wanted to build was VantaStat. If you look at the entry into the musculoskeletal care world and the typical episode of care, when somebody gets hurt, they go to an urgent care center or they go to the emergency room. Urgent care centers are notoriously bad at dealing with musculoskeletal injuries, so they may get an X-ray, they may not, they may get the wrong X-ray, and they’re going to tell the person to go see an orthopedic surgeon. The average length of time for someone to see an orthopedic surgeon in the United States, according to some of our research, is 17 days. We thought that that was a broken way to enter the system. 

We came up with VantaStat, which is basically a virtual urgent care tool that a patient can use to access the system. So what we’ve done is created an app where you can interact with a real person on the other end, who will be either a PA or an NP, and they will evaluate you and direct you what to do next. We guarantee 24 to 48 hour access to a specialist through the VantaStat platform. Just getting that access into the system, it will, first of all, it will cut down time off, and pain and medication usage and everything else, because you’re getting in right away and you’re not waiting 17 days to get in. 

Q: Were there any unexpected challenges during the roll out of VantaStat?

NG: Surgeons don’t like change. They are happy doing what they do and they don’t necessarily have the same level of visibility to how the market is changing. They’re not necessarily looking at what’s going on in the market with these third-party vendors and the PE groups and everything else. Explaining to them why we’re doing what we’re doing is important because no one likes changing how they do things. Everyone’s comfortable with what they do and workflow changes are always hard to implement. Anytime we’ve implemented anything in CAO since the time we started in 2013 has been difficult, and it takes time. We’ve learned how to navigate those changes with providers. Once you start showing success, you can start reporting some numbers that show how much business and revenue that change is driving, that’s when people start to buy in. VantaStat is putting patients in waiting rooms and everyone wants to see more patients, so that’s when you start getting traction.

Q: What goals do you have for MedVanta and VantaStat?

NG: VantaStat is the first piece of the puzzle. We then went on and developed several other pieces to create a suite of technologies and programs so that we can go directly to an employer to take over their musculoskeletal care. We have built a very saleable product that is EMR and regionally agnostic, so we can roll this out anywhere across the country with any other orthopedic group that wants to work with us so very easily. We could easily go to some of the orthopedic groups that we know in other regions and say, “We got this contract with this company. They have 1,000 employees in your area. Here’s what you need to do and work with them.” The goal is that it’s not an independent thing and instead part of a much larger platform.