What Medical Call Center Statistics Tell Us…and Inspire Us to Ask Written by web_developers on May 18, 2017. Posted in Manage. A few months ago, we wrote a blog, “How to Choose the Best Medical Call Center,” which attracted much attention—and which inspired us to discover and examine the reasons for its popularity. This process ultimately led to the development of a new white paper, Outsourced Medical Call Centers: Defining Success and Selecting the Best Partner, that we will soon be publishing. In the meantime, I thought I’d preface our white paper’s launch by exploring our audience’s interest in this topic and to share a little of what to expect in the white paper. It’s hard to argue with facts, and why we first looked at medical call center statistics to get some perspective. What we quickly noticed is there is a huge divide between those that do or don’t actively use a medical call center. Interchangeably known as healthcare call centers, hospital call centers and healthcare contact centers, medical call centers have become a commonplace component for patient communications and coordination. An estimated two-thirds of all hospitals (approximately 3800 hospitals, a figure that is growing) use a healthcare contact center (according to the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology study, Call Centers in Health Care: Effect on Patient Satisfaction). However, that remaining one-third accounts for more than 1900 hospitals that don’t have a medical call center, a sizable figure. That intrigued us: Why are hospitals so polarized when it comes to healthcare call centers, and how might this relate to interest in how to choose an outsourced medical device call center company? Forgive us for answering our own questions with more questions, but we found that using a Socratic method was the best way to find some conclusions. These questions included: For the hospitals that do use medical call centers: • Why do they use call centers? • Are their call centers part-time or full-time? • Are their call centers in-house and/or outsourced? • What functions and services do they provide? • How well do they perform—and for what criteria? For the hospitals that don’t use medical call centers: • Why don’t they use call centers? • What are their missed opportunities—whether for themselves and/or their patients? [poll id=”6″] Our discussions yielded another provocative question that applied to all hospitals, regardless if they did or did not use a medical call center: What are the differences between an outsourced call center versus an in-house call center independently built, staffed, managed and operated? We determined that the best way to answer these questions (and others) would best be captured in a well structured, researched and illustrated white paper that: • Defines medical call center structures, functions and capabilities • Delineates medical call center advantages and benefits • Validates the economic rewards of using a medical call center Contemplating these questions creates paths to better understanding how a medical call center could be a potential solution for a multitude of challenges—whether for current hospital call centers that are not performing as well as they should or for those curious about how a healthcare contact center could improve their patient engagement strategy. Please be sure to download the white paper or get notified when it is published! Brian Malone is Sequence Health’s Contact Center Director. Sequence Health has been a leading healthcare call center provider for more than a decade, including offering a nurse triage service. If you have been thinking about how to choose the best medical call center for your hospital, clinic or other healthcare facility, we are here to help find solutions.
Five Success Factors to Achieving Better Patient Acquisition, Management and Retention Written by web_developers on May 8, 2017. Posted in Manage. What you need to know and expect from your technology implementation Sequence Health has a long track record of successful client implementations. It’s a record we’re proud of, because we understand that many healthcare organizations may have some level of anxiety over the complexities of the implementation process. Putting those anxieties to rest is the best way to ensure our clients are maximizing the competitive value of our HIPAA-compliant, patient engagement and tracking solutions as soon as possible. Here’s are five factors that contribute to a successful Sequence Health implementation: #1: A hands-on, dedicated team—throughout the entire process Yes, it’s true that there will be many people involved with your implementation during different phases of the project, and both your internal team and our implementation team will have critical deadlines. But providing a dedicated resource to oversee the project from start-to-conclusion is key, and helps our team to communicate a clear understanding of the deployment timeframe and ensure a smooth and successful implementation. #2: Dedicated preparation to streamline the implementation One of the most critical steps to a successful implementation is coming onsite to perform a needs assessment. Our team will meet with everyone who will be involved on your team, document your workflow, and learn more about your goals and definition of success for the project. Once we define the scope of the project, we’ll configure the Sequence Health environment and train your team on how to move a patient through your Sequence environment. Plan on an extensive 1-2 day training period for your team, depending on the size of the practice. #3: Full go-live support You can expect us to be onsite on your launch date to provide all the support you need. This support will continue for the next 30 days and our clients know they have direct access to us—on demand—when they need it. #4: A Collaborative approach to build adoption and trust Every successful IT project is contingent on cooperation and collaboration between both client and vendor teams, and at Sequence Health we believe that communication throughout the entire process is essential—this means communication from the time of the initial sale, through go-live and even post-go-live. We also believe that user adoption hinges on a high level of comfort on the part of the user. If users don’t know how to use a technology product—they won’t. It’s really that simple. At Sequence Health , we make sure users are comfortable with our platform through full transparency into the product and every step of its implementation, and weekly cadence calls with the providers that use our technology. #5: Assurance that the feedback loop stays put User feedback to us is a continuous relationship, and our clients know they can provide feedback at any time, with Sequence Health remaining open to the consideration of new changes and ideas. Have any idea for a new feature or improvement? Share it with us, as honest feedback helps you to ultimately get more patients into your organization. Katrinka Unold is Sequence Health’s Director of Client Services & Implementation. Ready to learn more about our 5 steps to implementing better patient visibility, engagement, retention and loyalty? Contact us today!
HIPAA-Compliant Texting a Convenient, Efficient Way to Improve Patient Management and Outcomes Written by web_developers on April 12, 2017. Posted in Connect. Last month, we published a blog, “Using Automated Phone Calls and Texts to Improve Patient Outcomes, Hospital Brand Perceptions” that examined some advantages how telephones—including mobile phones and smartphones—can enhance patient management and communications. We also demonstrated the importance of using mobile device communications to engage with patients—in particular, via text messaging—after sharing research that stated approximately two-thirds of American adults own a smartphone, with 62 percent of them having used the device to get information about a health condition. As with so many other matters that relate to patient information, privacy—especially with respect to HIPAA compliance—is of supreme importance. Therefore, to fully appreciate the advantages of using text messages to communicate with patients, it’s crucial that patient text messages are HIPAA compliant. Ensuring HIPAA-Compliant Text Messages Ensuring that text messages comply with HIPAA privacy laws is fairly simple: You are essentially in compliance if your messages don’t include any information that identifies the patient (including his/her conditions or treatments). For example, you may send text-message appointment reminders and confirmations, but only if you don’t include the patient’s name, birth date or any similar information. It’s important to note text messages don’t need to be entirely stripped of practical healthcare information to be HIPAA-compliant. For instance, text messages that encourage patients to remain an active participant in their healthcare fit within this concept—so long as they don’t recommend specific tests for the patient or explicitly indicate the patient has a specific condition. Advantages of HIPAA-Compliant Text Messaging with Patients • More Convenient for Patients Many people who have a smartphone use it as more of a mobile office than as a mobile telephone. In some cases, they don’t even answer the phone. Instead, they prefer to use text messaging, e-mail and other messaging platforms. By communication through channels that patients may find more convenient, you might find that you’ll have more success contacting them via text than you might through phone calls. • Increase Engagement with Patients Smartphone users interact with their devices an estimated 2,617 times per day—which includes the times they check for messages, social media and missed phone calls. With such a high volume of daily interactions, HIPAA-compliant texting can help healthcare providers increase engagement with patients—but without having to place time-consuming phone calls that might just go to voicemail. • Improves Outcomes Research is routinely finding that text messages can improve patient outcomes. For instance (and as I recently mentioned in an article published by Digital Commerce 360.com, “Automated Texting Can Improve Patient Management and Outcomes”), a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research noted patients who received text messages as part of a study related to Type 2 diabetes had improved outcomes. • Optimizes Staff Resources Using platform-as-a-service (PaaS) patient management solutions that can send automated messages may free up your staff members’ time that would have otherwise been spent making phone calls to patients. This enables them to more quickly answer inbound calls from patients, which can result in a more productive and positive experience for patients. Gopi Yeleswarapu is Sequence Health’s Chief Technology Officer. Sequence Health is a recognized leader for innovative patient engagement solutions—which includes its Platform as a Service (PaaS), Sequence. To learn more about how Sequence can help you take advantage of HIPAA-compliant texting and other automated patient engagement solutions, please contact us.
Maximizing Health Operations Management Efficiencies Written by web_developers on April 7, 2017. Posted in Manage. Optimal efficiency may sound more like a technical term than an approach to healthcare, but cutting-edge healthcare operations management resources can help you get there. With an examination into clinic practices and professional guidance toward the ideal opportunities for you, healthcare operations management can be the ticket your clinic needs to succeed. Running a healthcare facility is a big job, especially for clinics with hundreds of patients and a huge support staff. Even with a trend toward more modern innovations—for example, paperless practices—healthcare operations management is still an uphill battle for clinics unsure about what it takes to improve efficiencies. Despite the tendency to stick with current practices regardless of the potential for progress, a different approach to healthcare management can save money and improve patient outcomes—which is especially important for clinics that participate in new reimbursement models such as value-based care. What is Healthcare Operations Management? In essence, healthcare operations management refers to the practice of converting labor into output in the most efficient way possible within the confines of a business. This means breaking away from traditional business norms in order to see improved results with less effort, reduced headcount, and a decreased time commitment. Sound a little convoluted? Let’s break it down further. In a standard medical clinic, a nurse, receptionist, or administrative team is on hand to perform a host of functions, including: • Schedule appointments • Answer patient questions • Retrieve records • Check patients in In busier clinics, this kind of endeavor can take a bustling collective of multiple people, shuffling through paper files, entering appointments manually into a calendar, and transposing patient answers from intake forms. If this doesn’t sound strange to you, it probably isn’t; thousands of clinics around the country still operate this way. However, the reliance on manual activity is far from the most efficient option, leaving plenty of places for your clinic to improve. Increasing efficiencies in this circumstance means looking for pain points, identifying solutions, and implementing a new way to get things done. For example, there’s no need to manage a calendar by hand or take appointments over the phone when an online scheduling program can handle this for you. Additionally, going paperless can save time and space in filing, allowing your patients to access medical records electronically through a secure portal rather than at your front desk. There’s no need to use paper intake forms either; a tablet with electronic forms can save administrative staff members time while ensuring all information is uploaded accurately into a central CRM platform. And while someone does indeed need to greet patients and answer the phone, one person can handle the task of managing the lobby—not an entire team. How PaaS Patient Management Tools Can Help For many clinics, especially those set in their ways, even small steps in the right direction can seem overwhelming. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. With help from platform-as-a-service (PaaS) patient management tools, it’s possible to easily identify weaknesses and quickly implement solutions designed to facilitate productive operations. Patient management tools go beyond convenience. From medical insurance processing to patient lead tracking, you can find ways to improve performance without sacrificing the bottom line. This, in turn, reduces the time spent by your team, creating a more efficient atmosphere in the office. John Richmond is Sequence Health’s CEO. Sequence Health is a recognized leader for innovative healthcare management solutions. To learn more about software solutions that will save time and money, and further your quest to become a more efficient facility, please contact us.
Improving Value-Based Care Outcomes With Social Determinants Written by web_developers on April 4, 2017. Posted in Other. To those unfamiliar with the harsh-sounding concept of “social determinants” in any aspect of healthcare, it might at first seem peculiar (at best) and dangerous (at worst). Then, when it involves payment models like value-based care that are used by Medicare, for instance, it becomes even more daunting. After all: Shouldn’t patients be recognized and treated based strictly on their healthcare needs rather than whatever “social determinants” might skew a decision one way or another? One should not be alarmed or suspicious of “social determinants,” as it is not as ominous as it may seem. Most simply, the idea is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for treating patients, especially those with chronic illnesses—because no two patients are alike. One set of differentiators is “social determinants,” which, as highlighted in an HFMA.com article, are defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as “the complex, integrated, and overlapping social structures and economic systems that are responsible for most health inequities.” Or, put another (and simpler) way by Modern Healthcare.com: “There’s no question that race, gender, socio-economic status and health literacy influence a patient’s healthcare access, cost and outcomes.” And that is how “social determinants” have become part of the discourse in healthcare, especially for those responsible for their hospital’s patient population management. But what it doesn’t answer is why. There are two ways to approach this. The first is in a more general context, best expressed by Healthcare IT News.com, in which it said a reason “healthcare providers are starting to catch on to the importance social determinants” is because “the pressure is on for providers to start thinking more about what happens outside of a doctor’s office and how it affects the patient.” That “pressure” leads to the second approach, which is more specifically related to the value-based care payment model. As we explained in one of our earlier blogs, “Healthcare Payment Reform: Fee for Service vs Value-Based Care,” value-based care “is assessed, and rewarded, based upon the value practices and procedures offer patients.” And because the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid now use the value-based care model for reimbursing certain treatments (which we analyze in another of our blogs, “How are MACRA and CJR Connected?,” the pressure has become more intense. Put bluntly: If adding data from social determinants is indeed part of a solid patient management strategy that theoretically can directly improve outcomes—both for the patient’s health and the hospital’s finances—a new question arises: How much of a difference could it actually make? Is it worth the effort and resources? Healthcare Informatics.com suggests that social determinants could have significant positive impacts on risk stratification models. It cited a report that said traditional risk models “only account for 10 percent of a patient’s overall health outcomes,” as where social determinants “account for about 70 percent of health outcomes.” Naturally, something that can cause a 60-percent boost to patient outcomes probably isn’t an easy technique to adapt. The aforementioned Modern Healthcare.com article verified that notion when it said: “What’s still fuzzy [about social determinants] is an understanding of which factors are within a provider’s control, and how to adjust for these factors in value-based payments.” Until a universal set of best practices emerges for integrating social determinants into a population health management strategy, there are some fundamental guidelines that can be used, such as the following shared in the aforementioned HFMA.com article: • Conduct a community health needs assessment • Collect diverse, relevant data pertaining to the population • Stratify patients according to risk • Implement solutions based on the findings Derek Rudnak is a freelance healthcare marketing content creator that frequently contributes exclusive blogs to Sequence Health. Sequence Health is a recognized leader for innovative patient management solutions—which includes its Platform as a Service (PaaS), Sequence. To learn more about how Sequence can help you improve patient outcomes, please contact us.
Does Your Hospital Website Actually Serve Visitors? Written by web_developers on March 22, 2017. Posted in Uncategorized. Seven Questions That All Hospital Website Administrators and Marketers Should be Asking It’s occasionally uncomfortable to think of patients and other hospital Website visitors as “customers,” but it does help to use that perspective when trying to understand how a hospital or healthcare Website can better serve its audience. MarketingLand.com recently published “7 Questions Your Customers Ask, and How Your Website Must Answer,” an excellent model for gauging how well your hospital Website is serving its “customers.” The following is a list of those questions, but positioned for hospital Websites and its audiences. [poll id=”4″] Why Does Your Hospital Deserve My “Business”? Again, it’s a bit odd to describe healthcare as “business” for “customers,” especially for somebody that isn’t just looking for a great deal on an HDTV or a hotel room, but instead, is trying to figure out the best place to everything from preventative care to urgent care to treatment for chronic illnesses. However, people often have choices when making healthcare decisions, and “7 Questions” was correct in asking this important question: Why does your hospital deserve somebody’s business? It suggested some ways to begin to answer the question, including: • Value Proposition: Almost without exception, your hospital’s marketing team has carefully crafted a mission statement and/value proposition statement that concisely explains its goals, benefits and differentiators. Likely, it appears on your Website’s homepage. But does the rest of your Website support those statements? If so, how and where? • Longevity: If your hospital has been around longer than others in your area, that should be promoted as an indication of its quality and community support. However, this can work another way, too: If you are a new, cutting-edge facility, promoting your innovative spirit can be highly advantageous. • Success Stories: Hospitals have multiple avenues to demonstrate its proven ability to deliver quality care! Among them are: • Patient Testimonials • Awards and Honors • Case Studies and Clinical Trial Reports What Makes Your Hospital Different? As “7 Questions” was quick to point out, “this is similar to the question [about deserving your business, but it’s directed toward the products or services you offer, rather than your company.” For hospitals, it might seem difficult to separate the whole from the sum of its parts, but it’s important for each of your hospital’s services and institutes communicate their own unique mission and value statements (which should also support those of the hospital). How well do each and all of them do that? Again, “7 Questions” provided some concepts to consider in this regard: • Approach: How do each of your services adopt, embrace or integrate your hospital’s UVP into its own approach? • Quality: What standards of quality—aside from those proscribed by the hospital—does each service use to demonstrate its proficiency or excellence? • Difference: What makes the service different (or better) than others available to the same audience? Can Your Hospital Help Me? At first glance, this could seem like a ridiculous or even rhetorical question…because one would hope that a hospital can indeed help somebody! But give it some thought and think back to the last question about what makes your hospital and services different. No hospital can help everybody and/or everywhere. This covers everything from: • Geography: Do you primarily serve parts of your city, county, state or region? Is your Website accurately explaining this? • Services: Along with providing a comprehensive list of the services your hospital offers, does it also do so in a manner that is accurate and benefits both you and your audience? For instance, if your “sports medicine” or “chronic care management” department is one of the smallest in your hospital, it probably shouldn’t be heavily promoted. • Customer Service: This will be explored in more detail later, but for now: How easily and accurately does your Website help people find answers—be it FAQs about parking to accessing one’s nurses or doctors? How Can I Justify Your Hospital’s Value? The “Seven Questions” article originally positioned this question as “How Can I Justify This Purchase,” but it’s not an appropriate fit in the context of healthcare. Likewise, hospital Websites don’t have “menus” or “shopping carts” that itemize what it offers and how much it costs. Instead, it’s better to think of this question in terms of value, a concept that exceeds mere dollars and cents. In what ways does your hospital’s Website give people reason to consider your facility as their best choice for their healthcare needs? Among the ways “7 Questions” provides for others to answer this question, one in particular stands out as exceptionally valid for hospital Websites: solutions. Ponder this beyond the obvious “you are sick and we can make you well” problem/solution paradigm. Instead, as you did in your value proposition where you identified what makes you special and why you are the best choice for your patients, ask “What makes our patients special and what problems do they have that are unique?” Where Do I Go From Here? “7 Questions” positioned this question as one where “the shopper is ready to proceed. Now what?” Although it is never in good taste to think of patients as “shoppers” or “customers,” it is fair and important to be able to answer “Now what?”, especially for hospital Website visitors. Answering this shouldn’t be too difficult; it just requires an understanding of why people come to you (which includes on the phone, online or in-person) and how your Website can either provide an option or make the process easier to: • Get Medical Attention • Schedule Appointments • Refill Prescriptions • Get More Information What Do I Do If I Have a Problem? For hospitals, there are two ways to conceptualize this question: • Medical or Clinical Problems: These problems can range from somebody that needs basic advice from clinician so that a trip to the ER or urgent care can be avoided to post-surgical/post-release questions that don’t justify calling 911 or cannot wait for the next available appointment. Does your hospital (or your hospital Website) have call centers, online support, etc. or other technologies/services for these scenarios…and if so, how easily is it to find and access them through your Website? • Customer Service Problems: Remember that your hospital serves two distinct groups: patients and visitors. Much of what’s been discussed has focused on patients, but satisfying the needs of visitors is an important one too. For instance, is getting to your hospital—or parking at it—difficult? How well does your hospital Website explain transportation-related information? Can I Trust Your Hospital? The article said, “Ultimately, every question above boils down to this very one.” For hospitals, this could not be more of an understatement! Without getting too philosophical, it’s best to say that trust is something earned. So, in that context, how can a hospital demonstrate that on its Website? The article offered several suggestions that are valid for hospitals: • Organization Memberships: Your hospital—and its services and institutes—all likely belong to multiple organizations that indicate a commitment to high standards. Are they mentioned on your Website? Does the Website make it easy for visitors to engage those organizations to learn more about you? • Industry Recognition: As mentioned in “Why Does Your Hospital Deserve My Business,” awards and honors that build confidence in your hospital can be instrumental in establishing trust. • Policies: How does your hospital ensure that key issues like patient rights and privacy are more than just words on a page (be it print or online)? • About Us: Most hospital Websites at least provide some background information about its history and its doctors, but again, how well does your Website communicate this information? Is it enough for visitors to have trust in you (and to answer other questions)? Derek Rudnak is a freelance healthcare marketing content creator that frequently contributes exclusive blogs to Sequence Health. Sequence Health is a recognized leader for innovative healthcare marketing solutions— which include inbound content marketing for hospitals. To learn more about how we can develop and implement a healthcare content marketing solution for you, please contact us.
What’s Up With CMS’ Cardiac and CJR Bundled Payment Delays? Written by web_developers on March 22, 2017. Posted in Orthopedics. An Overview of Facts and Opinions About CMS Delays for Cardiac and CJR Bundled Payments from Leading Healthcare Voices Yesterday, healthcare news and blog outlets were virtually tripping over each other to announce the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ decision to delay two bundled payment program deadlines. CMS’ first delay relates to Cardiac Care. In short, CMS changed the original July 1, 2017 effective date for mandatory bundled payment programs for heart attacks and bypass surgeries to October 1, 2017. [poll id=”3″] The second relates to Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement, a topic that we’ve been discussing for months—including a recent blog, “Bundled Payments and CJR Among Key Topics of Interest at ACPM’s 2017 Orthopedic Value Based Care Conference.” CMS is delaying the expansion of the CJR bundled payment program from the original July 1, 2017 date to October 1, 2017. If that explains the “what” and “when” factual reasons for the delay, what about “why”? CMS’ announcement explains it is to: • Extend review time • Potentially modify the policy • Ensure participants understand the policy However, there is much more being said about the delays, especially from the aforementioned healthcare news and blog outlets that have cast some compelling analyses. For instance, Healthcare DIVE.com speculated “the recently released interim rule casts doubt on the future of bundled payment initiatives,” even after President Donald Trump’s February 2017 executive order to delay the new rules. The reason for the sudden doubt is that, according to the American Journal of Managed Care: “…even if the coverage elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are repealed, payment reform would move forward under the Trump administration, in part because Republicans voted overwhelming with Democrats for the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA).” The delays are also possibly having real-time impacts for healthcare providers not expecting delays, much less potential rollback of the programs. As Managed Health Care Connect.com suggested: “Although CMS originally envisioned the bundled-payment programs would help clinicians accrue incentives under the Alternative Payment Model, delays may have implications for providers who were hoping to use the bundled payment models during their MACRA verification.” In sum, the confusion about the health of current and proposed CMS programs—especially those closely tied to the Affordable Care Act—is and was to be expected, which we touched in at the beginning of the year in our blog, “How Might Repealing Obamacare Affect Medicare Reimbursements?.” And, as stated in that blog, the best advice is perhaps to “do what you can now to ensure the best outcomes for your Medicare patients, which can be improved with a reliable and efficient patient management system.” Derek Rudnak is a freelance healthcare marketing content creator that frequently contributes exclusive blogs to Sequence Health.
Easy Ways You Can Support Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month in March 2017 Written by web_developers on March 4, 2017. Posted in Other. [tweet “… easy and quick tips to support the cause and engage with your facility’s patients.”] Once again, we are putting a spotlight on this month’s national health observance—which for March 2017 is Colorectal Cancer Month—so that busy hospital and clinic marketing teams can get some easy and quick tips to support the cause and engage with their facility’s patients. Normally we wouldn’t be as explicit about previous month’s observances, however, there are some striking consistencies what we wrote last month about supporting American Heart Month. The first relates to why we tailored this and last month’s content for bariatric surgery centers. Most simply a significant percentage of partners are bariatric surgery centers, although we provide patient management solutions for all types of hospitals and clinics. Thus, we are again positioning our tips for bariatric surgery center marketing and patient management—however, they can easily be used by general healthcare providers and many other specialties or centers of excellence. Linking Bariatric Surgery with Colorectal Cancer The second consistency may seem redundant if you read last month’s blog, but we assure you, it’s not! However, as with heart disease, there are very real connections between colorectal cancer and bariatric surgery (which includes patients with obesity and diabetes). And like we said last month, don’t just take our word for it! According to the National Cancer Institute’s “Cancer Fact Sheet”, “People who are obese are slightly (about 30%) more likely to develop colorectal cancer than normal-weight people” and “A higher BMI is associated with increased risks of colon and rectal cancers in both men and in women, but the increases are higher in men than in women.” Additionally, the NCI said “the United States had the highest fractions attributable to overweight/obesity for colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and postmenopausal breast cancer and “that obesity may worsen several aspects of cancer survivorship.” It should not be difficult see to detect a pattern: Untreated or poorly managed patients with obesity and diabetes are at greater risk for developing other health problems that either can be prevented or treated with bariatric surgery. Promote Your Bariatric Surgery Center’s Colorectal Cancer Programs [tweet “…your bariatric surgery center can modify or repurpose existing programs, content and collateral.”] The third consistency is practically a facsimile of what we wrote last month about how your bariatric surgery center can modify or repurpose existing programs, online content and print collateral that relate to lifestyle improvements that can directly or indirectly improve heart health. This includes several suggestions from the National Health Information Center’s American Heart Month Toolkit such as: • Better weight management • Controlling cholesterol and blood pressure • Drinking alcohol only in moderation • Quitting smoking and avoiding secondhand smoke Create Colorectal Cancer Screening Campaigns The Centers for Disease Control has created the Screen for Life: National Colorectal Cancer Action Campaign which was designed to inform men and women aged 50 years and older about the importance of having regular colorectal cancer screening tests. Unfortunately, as the CDC explains, “about one-third of adults aged 50 or older (about 22 million people)—the age group at greatest risk of developing colorectal cancer—have not been screened as recommended.” The CDC provides virtually everything you need to develop a colorectal cancer screening campaign, including: • Buttons and Badges • Campaign Research • Colorectal Cancer Quiz • Personal Screening Stories • Print Materials • Public Service Announcements • Resource Toolkit • “Screening Helps Prevent Colorectal Cancer” Infographic • Social Media Posts and Images Another way to reach patients is to explore automated phone calls and text messages, which we very recently explored in our most recent blog, “Automated Phone Calls and Texts Can Improve Patient Outcomes.” (In fact, one of the examples mentioned was a study about how automated phone calls got 578 patients to schedule colon cancer screenings, which led to the diagnosis of pre-cancerous polyps in an estimated 145 patients…25 percent rate of detection!) [tweet “Another way to reach patients is to explore automated phone calls and text messages…”] Use Social Media for #ColorectalCancerAwarenessMonth Along with using social media to share and find useful information related to American Heart Month (including trending hashtags such as #colorectalcancerawarenessmonth and #80by18 and #getscreened), it’s also an excellent opportunity to expand your networks. For instance, if you don’t already, here are some worthy Twitter accounts you might want to follow: • @preventcancer, the official Twitter page for the Prevent Cancer Foundation, the only U.S. nonprofit organization solely devoted to cancer prevention and early detection. • @CDCgov, the official Twitter page for the Centers for Disease Control Not sure what to post in your Tweets (or on Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram)? The CDC has created a list of suggested social posts and images that can get you in the right direction! Sequence Health proudly supports Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. For more about our company and our patient management platform Sequence, please contact us.
Using Automated Phone Calls and Texts to Improve Patient Outcomes, Hospital Brand Perceptions Written by web_developers on March 3, 2017. Posted in Connect. The thought of using any type of automated phone system for communicating with patients—including text messages—might not initially seem to a be productive one. After all, how many times have you received a “robocall” or an unsolicited text that proved to be nothing more than a nuisance? In that context, why would you want to jeopardize your hospital’s brand with perceptions of being a nuisance? However, those conclusions might not necessarily be valid. Studies about automated healthcare phone calls and texts are suggesting thited a report that indicated how a “health system [that] had previously been close to the bottom of the national average for colorectal screening “used automated phone calls” to get 578 patients to schedule colon cancer screenings, which led to the diagnosis of pre-cancerous polyps in an estimated 145 patients.” contrary—particularly in the ability for them to boost patient outcomes and engagement and to improve brand perceptions. Automated Phone Messages: The Colon Cancer Screening Study There are some outstanding examples of how automated phone messages have proven their potential. FierceHealthcare.com’s “Automated Phone Notifications Engage Patients, Boost Follow-Up Care” cited a report that indicated how a “health system [that] had previously been close to the bottom of the national average for colorectal screening “used automated phone calls” to get 578 patients to schedule colon cancer screenings, which led to the diagnosis of pre-cancerous polyps in an estimated 145 patients.” Some simple math shows 25 percent of those patients were diagnosed…an impressive rate indeed! Automated Text Messages: The Heart Disease Study Of course, any discussion about modern phone communications implies the usage of mobile devices and smartphones—which further implies the usage of SMS text messaging. According to Pew Research’s “6 Facts About Americans and Their Smartphones,” approximately two-thirds of American adults own a smartphone, with 62 percent of them having used the device to get information about a health condition. With most of the population using a technology that has a positive relationship with personal health management, it would seem reasonable to suggest that automated text messages could be a key to improving patient outcomes, like automated phone messages. Once again, studies are confirming this presumption. In 2015, the JAMA Network published clinical trial results, “Effect of Lifestyle-Focused Text Messaging on Risk Factor Modification in Patients With Coronary Heart Disease“, in which half of the 700 participating heart disease patients were sent text messages either two or four times a week for a six-month period. The report concluded: “Among patients with CHD, the use of a lifestyle-focused text messaging service compared with usual care resulted in a modest improvement in LDL-C level and moderate improvements in blood pressure, BMI, and smoking status.” Improving Hospital and Clinic Brand Perceptions Earlier it was suggested that automated phone calls and texts could be perceived as a nuisance—even if they are in fact effective at improving communications with patients. Yet, research is deflecting the negative implications. For instance, MedicalEconomics.com’s “Staying Connected to Patients Beyond the Office Visit” mentioned a study that said: “66% of Americans have received a voicemail, text or email from their healthcare provider, with half of those who received a communication saying it made them feel more valued, a third saying the digital communication improved their opinion of the provider and a third saying it made them feel more likely to visit the provider again.” How to Use Automated Phone Calls and Texts to Improve Patient Management and Outcomes If your hospital or clinic uses a patient appointment management platform, it’s possible that you already have the tools needed to immediately use automated phone calls and text messages to better engage with and manage your patients. However, automated communications are useful for many other objectives, including alerts and reminders for: • Prescription refills • Drug recall • Monitoring • Preventative care The advantages of improving patient outcomes not only exceed the primary goal of every healthcare provider to help patients enjoy healthier and happier lives, but as we’ve discussed in blogs such as “BPCI Initiative Year 2 Lessons Learned,” they are increasingly related to Medicare reimbursements. Sequence Health is a recognized leader for innovative patient management solutions, which includes our Sequence patient management PaaS (platform as a service). To learn about how Sequence Health can help your improve your patient outcomes and engagement, please contact us.
Sequence Health to Present Health IT and Improved Patient Outcome Talk at HIMSS 2017 Written by web_developers on February 1, 2017. Posted in Bariatric Surgery, Company Overview. This year has already been an active one in regards to our participation at healthcare-related conferences, and there’s even more to come! Two weeks ago we were in Newport Beach, California for the American College of Perioperative Medicine’s Interdisciplinary Conference on Orthopedic Value Based Care, and last weekend we were in Dallas for the Texas Association for Bariatric Surgery’s 2017 Annual Meeting. After having tremendously positive experiences at those events, we are now shifting our focus to HIMSS 2017 in Orlando at the Orange County Convention Center, February 19–23, 2017. We will be demonstrating our SaaS patient management platform Sequence and engaging with healthcare industry professionals to gain expert insight about innovative ideas and best practices in improving health through IT. Although we are always excited about exhibiting at conferences and other related events, we are especially enthused about HIMSS 2017 for two reasons. First, it’s simply a big deal for healthcare IT companies like ourselves. Spanning five days, it will host an estimated 40,000 guests (including 1200 exhibitors) and present approximately 300 sessions. Which leads to the second reason: We will be a presenter at one of those sessions! Exploring Health IT and Increasing Surgical Procedures and Outcomes [tweet “I will deliver a 20-minute talk, ‘Increase Surgical Procedures and Outcomes with Sequence’…”] I will deliver a 20-minute talk, Increase Surgical Procedures and Outcomes with Sequence (Saturday, Feb. 22 from 12:30–12:50 p.m. ET / Session ID CH37). In it, I will share how hospitals and medical practices have utilized our end-to-end patient engagement solutions to improve outcomes by optimizing the patient journey throughout the care continuum. There has never been a more crucial time to explore this concept. Considering that the five-year long trial of Comprehensive Joint Replacement program’s bundled payments is not even a year old and the uncertainty surrounding the future of healthcare policy with the newly elected administration (which we discussed in How Might Repealing Obamacare Affect Medicare Reimbursements?), many healthcare providers have not begun learning how to best comply with these changes (which I recently addressed in Three Key Metrics To Control Post-Acute Care Costs And Optimize CJR Reimbursements). Recommended “Government Sessions” at HIMSS 2017 For that matter, we’re eager to check out many of the HIMSS 2017’s “Government Sessions” where experts and colleagues at all levels of government on health IT-related public policy initiatives will examine the new Administration and its impact on health and health IT. These sessions are only a fraction of what is on the schedule, and the following are among intriguing to us: • Health Information Technology – Enabling Joint Readiness (Monday, Feb. 20 from 10:30–11:30 a.m. | Session ID: 11) • HIPAA Privacy, Security – Lessons from 2016 and What’s Next in 2017 (Monday, Feb. 20 from 10:30–11:30 a.m. | Session ID: 9) • Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) Health IT Policy Update (Tuesday, Feb. 21 from 8:30–9:30 a.m. | Session ID: 66) • State Officials Panel: Health IT Across the States (Tuesday, Feb. 21 from 8:30–9:30 a.m. | Session ID: 72) • Overcome Challenges/Obstacles to Achieving Interoperability (Tuesday, Feb. 21 from 10–11 a.m. | Session ID: 86) • Congressional Forum (Tuesday, Feb. 21 from 10–11 a.m. | Session ID: 87) • MIPS: Advancing Care Information and Improvement Activities (Tuesday, Feb. 21 from 1–2 p.m. | Session ID: 111) • Efforts to Assist Providers and Patients In Using Health IT for High Quality Care (Wednesday, Feb. 22 from 10–11 a.m. | Session ID: 158) • Keynote Speaker: John Boehner (Wednesday, Feb. 22 from 8.30–10 a.m.) John Richmond is Sequence Health’s CEO. Please let us know if you’d like to schedule some time to meet with him and our team at HIMSS 2017 to learn more about our patient engagement solutions to improve outcomes.