Dr. Douglas Elwood is a board-certified physician with over 15 years experience in health and wellness who has led innovation efforts for a number of companies and has dedicated his career to improving education, communication, and outcomes for patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers. As a thought-leader in the space, he has consulted to companies throughout the industry, presented at conferences worldwide, and has multiple publications including a featured chapter in the esteemed annual HIMSS publication on mHealth. He is on part-time faculty at NYU Langone Medical Center at Rusk Rehabilitation and led one of the country's first and largest clinical studies on the use of technology in clinical care at Rusk and how social media, digital, mobile, and connected health influence communications, patient behavior, and physician workflow. Along with his part-time work at Rusk, Dr. Elwood is the Chief Medical Officer for PWNHealth where he leads over 150 physicians and genetic counselors, creates clinical protocols, oversees all clinical quality issues, and provides virtual care to large numbers of patients on a daily basis. A graduate of Amherst College and Jefferson Medical College, he is the holder of both MD and MBA degrees.
In Part 2 of this two-part series. Dr. Elwood reviews: how his health career journey after medical school and residency training brought him to where he works today and how he arrived there; promising uses of virtual care technology with patients; and the importance of forecasting key trends and identifying potential new opportunities in the emerging American health care scene.
Dr. Douglas Elwood is a board-certified physician with over 15 years experience in health and wellness who has led innovation efforts for a number of companies and has dedicated his career to improving education, communication, and outcomes for patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers. As a thought-leader in the space, he has consulted to companies throughout the industry, presented at conferences worldwide, and has multiple publications including a featured chapter in the esteemed annual HIMSS publication on mHealth. He is on part-time faculty at NYU Langone Medical Center at Rusk Rehabilitation and led one of the country's first and largest clinical studies on the use of technology in clinical care at Rusk and how social media, digital, mobile, and connected health influence communications, patient behavior, and physician workflow. Along with his part-time work at Rusk, Dr. Elwood is the Chief Medical Officer for PWNHealth where he leads over 150 physicians and genetic counselors, creates clinical protocols, oversees all clinical quality issues, and provides virtual care to large numbers of patients on a daily basis. A graduate of Amherst College and Jefferson Medical College, he is the holder of both MD and MBA degrees.
In Part 1 of this two-part series, Dr. Elwood addresses: his involvement in a number of research activities exploring the use of technology to enhance patient care while serving as a resident/chief resident at Rusk and then later as a part-time clinical instructor; how technology has enhanced patient engagement in improving health care; value-based care as an emerging/blossoming approach to contain costs while enhancing care; shifts that may be occurring away from traditional providers, such as physician offices, clinics, and hospitals to a more technology-driven way of doing business; and how developments in the commercial sphere, such as the creation of apps and virtual technology parallel and augment what is unfolding in the clinical care and biomedical research domains.
Dr. Tayyaba Ahmed is a doctor of physical medicine and rehabilitation. A native of New York City, after spending five years honing her skills in outpatient care, Dr. Ahmed focuses on her passion for treating pelvic pain, believing that concentrating on a specific field creates the greatest expertise. A board certified Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation physician, Dr. Ahmed also is a fellow of the Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and a member of the International Pelvic Pain Society. She completed the BS/Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine program at New York Institute of Technology and was trained at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, Northwell Health Plainview Hospital, and the NYU Langone Medical Center/RUSK Institute for Rehabilitation.
In Part 2 of this two part series, Dr. Ahmed discusses: among the interventions of electrical stimulation, biofeedback, and pelvic floor muscle training, deciding which of these approaches either singly or in combination are best suited for a particular patient; ways of evaluating the effectiveness of these interventions; medications involved in treatment and for what purposes; periods of time, such as weeks or months when most rehabilitation interventions take place and whether plateaus ever occur where further treatment is not associated with additional improvements; and instances such as the presence of a patient’s advanced old age or co-morbidities where watchful waiting may represent the best choice instead of any other kind of intervention.