Why Advance Online

Since 1995 we have been successfully supporting Victorian patients with chronic pain to lead happier and more productive lives. Our results speak for themselves with industry leading outcomes on improving function, reducing opioids, facilitating return to work and promoting independent self management. That is why Advance Healthcare has developed Advance Online - bringing benchmark leading (1) medical, psychology, physiotherapy and dietitian services to the whole of Australia via telehealth and innovative tech solutions. Advance Online offers multi-disciplinary Pain Management to people with chronic pain and psychology services for people with mental health issues across Australia.

1. Electronic Persistent Pain Outcomes Collaboration 2020/2021 reports. University of Wollongong, Australia

 What makes us different?

Experience

Our clinical programs have been developed and refined over decades by our expert team of practitioners led by Associate Professor Jon Ford (Managing Director, PhD, Musculoskeletal and Pain Physiotherapist), Dr Aston Wan, (Medical Director, Specialist Pain Physician) and Charles Ruddock (Clinical Director of Psychology, Clinical Psychologist). A full listing of our practitioners can be found here.

Track record

We are one of the largest and most established providers for people with chronic health issues in Australia with 6 practices, 50+ practitioners and over 30 years’ clinical and research experience.

Over the past 5 years we have collected program results from over 2000 patients. In 2020/2021 our results showed 90% of patients completing our program report significant greater improvements compared to other pain management programs around Australia (see figure below). The quality of our program, training and clinical quality assurance approaches is particularly evident when you consider the large number of practitioners in our group, and that these outcomes were achieved across 6 different clinics and a telehealth consultation rate of 40% during the COVID pandemic.

 A true commitment to evidence-based practice

Our Pain Management program is based on the latest research evidence including a systematic review of a large number of clinical trials (Kamper et al 2015). Our approach is also supported by our world-leading clinical research team who have published over 50 peer-reviewed papers on the management of chronic health issues. You can rest assured that our Advance Online treatment program has been developed around scientifically supported approaches that adhere to the best practice guidelines. One highly relevant paper from our group shows that the Advance approach to managing chronic low back pain results in a $3000 saving per patient due to reduced sick leave. The paper also showed an incremental cost effectiveness ratio (ICER) of $422 per quality-adjusted life year gained which is highly favourable compared to most other treatments for chronic health problems.

 Driven by data

All our patients are monitored by the Electronic Persistent Outcome Collaboration (ePPOC) and our Managing Director is a member of the ePPOC Clinical Management Advisory Committee. We are able to provide reports every 6 months on a range of outcomes including medication, treatment utilisation, return to work, program costs and duration as well as a series of validated outcome measures including the Brief Pain Inventory, the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, the Pain Catastrophising Scale and the Pain Self Efficacy Questionnaire. Over the past 5 years these data have had a major impact on review and improvement in our programs as demonstrated on the following graph showing improvement on opioid use after major program restructure. We own our outcomes.

This graph further demonstrates our commitment to clinical quality assurance and continuous improvement. In 2016-2018, the ePPOC results showed a significant decrease in the percentage of patients achieving a “clinically important” reduction in opioids at 6-months post program. As a result, we reviewed our clinical protocols and pain management approaches in a systematic evidence-based manner, resulting in a dramatic turnaround over the past 3 years. In 2021 over 70% of all patients taking opioids at the beginning of our pain management programs had reduced their intake by over 50% at 6 months post program.

Given the costs and harms of opioid overuse these results are an outstanding endorsement of the effectiveness of our pain management programs and our ability to respond to outcome data.

Currently we are undertaking a major randomised controlled trial to improve self efficacy in our patients. In the compensable environment this metric can be challenging to shift and we wish to improve from average (compared to most providers who see less complex private pain patients) to well above average.