A Hospital Avoidance Pathway With Digitally Supported Follow‐Up for Low Back Pain: An Alternative to Emergency Department Care
Joseph F. Orlando, Maria Zucco, Usha Ritchie, Anne L. J. Burke, Matthew Beard, Michelle Guerin, Saravana Kumar · 2026
Read A Hospital Avoidance Pathway With Digitally Supported Follow‐Up for Low Back Pain: An Alternative to Emergency Department Care by Joseph F. Orlando, Maria Zucco, Usha Ritchie, Anne L. J. Burke, Matthew Beard, Michelle Guerin, Saravana Kumar (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13473620.txt.
Description
Orlando and colleagues in South Australia tested in 2026 a side road for low back pain that steers folk away from the emergency ward. Most back pain there is not grave, yet ward care is slow and dear. Their path sent such folk to a team clinic, with phone app checks to track the mend. The team read the charts of 143 patients from the first ten months, and heard from a score in talks.
Most patients signed up for the app checks. At two weeks, pain and daily task scores had both gained by a clear mark, while mood scores had not. Nine in ten kept clear of the ward for three months. In talks, folk prized fast slots, care that fit their hopes, and the app as a spur to move. The authors pitch the path as a sound swap for ward care.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Joseph F. Orlando, Maria Zucco, Usha Ritchie, Anne L. J. Burke, Matthew Beard, Michelle Guerin, Saravana Kumar |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 43 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |