BROOKFIELD, Connecticutt—ROM Technologies Inc. (ROMTech), creator of the PortableConnect Rehab System, announced that its at-home rehabilitation model aims to address two barriers facing Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) knee-replacement patients: distance from rehabilitation services and coordination between VA and community care.
Approximately 3 million rural veterans are enrolled in VA healthcare, and 54% are 65 or older. In a national VA knee-replacement study, 40.8% of patients lived in rural areas, making repeated long distance travel a potential barrier to consistent rehabilitation.
A national study identified 93,063 primary knee replacements among VA enrollees from October 2019 through July 2024; 58,152, or 62.5%, occurred through community care. The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) consistently points to referral delays and scheduling bottlenecks in the split system.
Travel is already a significant VA operational consideration. Its 2026 revised budget request includes approximately $2.29 billion for beneficiary travel, although the VA does not report how much is attributable to rehabilitation or rural veterans. In a separate rural cancer-care initiative, the VA brought services closer to nearly 4,000 veterans, supporting more than 11,000 appointments while avoiding more than 900,000 travel miles.
"Veterans should not have to choose between the protracted travel required to reach rehabilitation and missing it altogether," said Peter Arn, ROMTech CEO. "PortableConnect delivers structured rehabilitation at home while keeping clinicians connected 100% of the time to each veteran's recovery across VA and community care."
The PortableConnect platform provides clinician-directed therapy, remote monitoring and real-time recovery data. ROMTech said it has deployed the PortableConnect in the homes of more than 200,000 patients nationwide, including patients from 63 VA hospitals. In a separate internal analysis of 35,294 patients, users averaged 2.7 sessions per day, seven days per week—approximately 38 sessions during the first two weeks after discharge, compared with four to six ambulatory physical therapy sessions during the same period.
In a separate analysis of self-reported outcomes from 2,371 PortableConnect patients following total knee replacement, patients reported:
- 2.9% overnight hospital readmission rate and a 2.5% rate of falls with injury, compared with published rates of 6.7% and 8.0%, respectively.
- 2.6% combined rate of deep-vein thrombosis or infection involving the surgical knee and a 2.8% manipulation-under-anesthesia rate, approximating published rates or lower.
VA leaders and clinicians can explore PortableConnect or contact ROMTech to discuss access to home-based rehabilitation for veterans.