My Healthie
RECOVER TOGETHER
The future of personalized medicine begins with you
OUR VISION
For many, spine surgery is life-changing event. During the first several months following surgery, you may experience transient extremity pain and muscle soreness. This pain is caused by the return of neurological function following successful surgical decompression. The level of pain varies greatly among patients and depends on a number of factors, including your previous experiences, social surroundings and your mood. Many patients feel alone and anxious, lacking information and peers with whom to share their experience. Our SpineHealthie smartphone app will allow you to easily check on the progress of your recovery, share achievements with your doctor, nurses and friends, and provide milestones that motivate you to get back on their feet
SpineHealthie - the App
Your companion following spine surgery
Recovery Tracker
Compare your recovery to your peers
Achievements
Track and share your achieved milestones after surgery
Information and tips to promote recovery
Ample interactive guidance
Get to know us
Our patients
Our goal is to transform every aspect of the surgical experience in order to maximize safety, satisfaction and quality of life for our patients. Nobody knows how to do this better than the very patients we work with each day, and we are fortunate to have their direct input into every step of the development of our next generation mobile technologies.
Christoph Hofstetter, MD, PhD, FACS
Christoph Hofstetter, M.D., Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Washington. He is a neurosurgeon specializing in complex spine surgery with an emphasis on spine tumors and minimally invasive techniques. Dr. Hofstetter received his M.D. from the University of Vienna, Austria, and earned his Ph.D. at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, focusing on experimental treatment strategies for traumatic spinal cord injuries. He then completed a surgical internship and neurosurgery residency at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center. He completed clinical fellowships at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center focusing on spine tumors. Dr. Hofstetter completed clinical fellowship training at the Mayo Clinic and a spine fellowship focusing on complex minimally invasive spine surgery at the University of Miami.
Dr. Hofstetter is a pioneer in full-endoscopic spine surgery. He is actively teaching and innovating full-endoscopic spine surgery world-wide. Dr Hofstetter was named a Top Doctor 2021 in Neurological Surgery by the Seattle magazine.
Lynn McGrath, MD
Lynn McGrath, M.D. is a Chief Resident Physician in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Washington. Under the guidance of Dr. Hofstetter he has been working to investigate the clinical benefits of fully-endoscopic spine surgery and to explore the adoption of mobile health tools for the improvement of post-operative patient care, communication and recovery. Throughout the course of his training he has worked to identify opportunities to improve clinical care through the development of mobile health technology. This research is focused on utilizing smartphones to capture novel physiological data for training machine learning algorithms which can be leveraged to provide novel diagnostic tools for the smartphone platform. His project PupilScreen, an app for diagnosing TBI, has generated significant interest from the international press, including features by Newsweek, the Washington Post, CNN, GeekWire, and The Times and was named one of GE’s “5 Coolest Things On Earth This Week”. He was recently named the “Seattle Health Innovator of the Year” for 2018.
THE TEAM
During the last decade, Dr. Hofstetter and the members of the ESSG have worked continuously to make spine surgery more effective, decrease associated morbidity, and promote better recovery. The members of the ESSG combine the principals of minimally invasive surgery with the advantages of full-endoscopic spine surgery. This novel type of spine surgery has allowed to provide favorable outcomes while minimizing approach related pain and morbidity.
As these surgeries are typically performed as outpatient surgeries. Thus, patients experience the return of neurological function while recovering at home. Recovering nerve roots can cause symptoms such as tingling sensation, muscle soreness, or numbness. In our experience, many patients feel anxious during this process and seek information and consultation regarding the sensations of their recovering nervous system.
It is for this reason, Dr. Hofstetter developed the SPINEHealthie smartphone app at the University of Washington. The app allows patients to easily check their recovery progress, share achievements with their doctors and nurses, and provide milestones that motivate them to get back on their feet. As patients experience unfamiliar symptoms, they have a direct line with their care team who can help to intervene during treatment and make sure that there are no hiccups in the recovery process. The COVID pandemic has further motivated Dr Hofstetter develop a smartphone application that would maintain but also strengthen patient-physician relationships when face to face interactions are greatly reduced.