Editor’s Note: This is the final piece of our three part series on the enterprise engagement platform and patient-centricity, co-authored by Jessica Friedeman and Gary Druckenmiller. Be sure to check out parts one and two for more information on how to develop patient-centric communication throughout the continuum of care.
Marketing groups with access to a robust CRM system will be developing campaigns designed to extend the relationship with the patient after the initial episode of care. Retention marketing programs featuring automated care reminders or wellness tips are not uncommon. These healthcare communication solutions should leverage the intelligence that has been gathered about patients. And today, with CMS penalizing hospitals for higher than benchmarked readmission rates for a growing number of conditions, there are direct impacts on revenues and costs when health self-management skills are not effectively reinforced during care transitions. The type of behavior change required by people to take care of themselves is not easy. Leveraging the CRM platform’s intelligence to inject patient-centricity into these clinically driven communications is more important than ever to reinforce positive behaviors. While this may require a cultural shift, and may not come naturally, this focus on the patient needs to be in play the moment a patient walks through the door – regardless of the care setting.
In many hospitals there is a tension between marketing and clinical operations. Clinical leadership will cede ownership of the consumer to marketing and happily stay out of acquisition activities. It’s another story when it comes to ownership of the patient where clinical reigns supreme. This isn’t inherently a bad thing. The problem is that, more often than not, the marketing suite and all that they have learned are left out of the equation. In many cases, efforts to establish patient-centric care end up being undermined by poor communication in the hospital setting. In fact, when HCAPHS results are analyzed by Hospital Compare, the two areas where facilities consistently receive poor marks are doctor/patient and nurse/patient communication. The fact that the CMS value-based purchasing program tracks some portion of reimbursement to satisfaction scores creates an opening for the marketing team to collaborate on improving provider/patient communications inside – and outside – care settings.
Creating an Ideal Solution
Understanding the challenges clinicians are operating under is important in helping to create a solution that benefit patients and complements clinical workflow. Hospitals have made huge investments in EHRs and are working on capturing federal incentive payments tied to the meaningful use program. The tethered PHR – a patient-facing extension of what is usually a billing-code driven clinical EHR – is the choice du jour of many hospitals to meet the Patient & Family Engagement Standards of the HITECH Act. As a result, communications are flowing through the EHR/PHR leaving the staff with a lousy communication toolset because the foundational system was not designed to facilitate interpersonal communications. Therefore, it’s incumbent on the champions of the enterprise engagement platform to step up and show how patient-centric communication is possible and how it can drive better care.
The EHR/PRH is the backbone of clinical workflow but that does not mean there is no room for the Enterprise Engagement Platform. In fact, the engagement platform can and should co-exist with the EHR to complement care by providing patient-centric communications across the continuum. To maximize the value of an enterprise engagement platform, it needs to be available to clinicians at the point of care. Business stakeholders should collaborate with the CIO and the IT team on bringing the healthcare communications solutions platform into the in-patient environment. Starting with an understanding that all stakeholders in the hospital want to provide quality care, by aligning with the CIO and expressing empathy to the IT suite’s challenges and priorities, there is an increased likelihood that enterprise access to the Engagement Platform can occur at the earliest possible time.
Proposing a Pilot
To help illustrate to physicians – as well as IT and other leadership – the benefits of leveraging the intelligence of the communications platform in every care setting, consider proposing a Pilot:
1. Target an Area to Pilot – Start with the issues that have been driving PRM strategies- i.e. those that have been collected via physician outreach efforts. Are there clinical pain points in specific service lines that improved communications can help alleviate? Are knee replacement patients slow on starting rehab which is extending length of stay? Are there issues in cardiac discharges that suggest medication education needs improvement? Let the data drive the decision.
2. Identify the communication pathway. For example, the orthopedic patient above may receive any combination of the following messages during the first 48 hours after surgery depending on both their medical status and their behavioral, demographic, and psychographic profile:
1. A video or illustrated article about the importance of starting rehab asap
2. A video or illustrated article about managing pain
3. A coupon to purchase a knee brace at a discount with list of local retailers and an option to order online.
4. A prescription for PT with CTA to make the first appointment via phone/web/discharge planner
5. List of support groups or community/faith based organizations
Additionally the mechanisms for delivering these messages need to be defined. Will messages be available within the PHR? Made available via a Patient Entertainment/Education system? Sent via secure email or HIPAA compliant texts to the patient’s own devices?
3. Establish the communication process. How are the messages being triggered? Who is responsible for content delivery/who is the owner? A semi-automatic process may make sense during the pilot phase. Marketing staff should be made available to partner with clinical resources on execution of the pilot.
4. Quality Control – All content should be clinically reviewed by staff for scientific accuracy. Any technology utilized needs to be HIPAA compliant. Programs need to be thoroughly tested prior to implementation.
5. The test population should be flagged and compared against the control group for established KPIs such as:
1. Outcomes
2. Readmissions
3. Satisfaction Scores
6. The results data should also inform future CRM/PRM strategies by looking for:
1. Results v. Referring Provider Trends
2. Future co-branded retention campaigns
The end game is to take communications out of the clinical information systems. Instead, data from the EHR should be one of the inputs into the patient-centric healthcare communication solutions platform. This does not mean taking the clinician out of the equation. Doctors and nurses are not enamored with the communication capabilities of their EHRs. In the wake of a well-designed and successful pilot, there should be a plan that will allow clinicians to take advantage of the engagement platform – both the creative assets and the demographic information – at the point of care. Empowering clinicians by leveraging the intelligence gleaned from the engagement platform will ultimately create efficiencies at the point of care, improve outcomes, and increase satisfaction.
Conclusion
In this series, we started by recognizing the negative impact that the fragmented nature of the US healthcare system has on care quality, safety, and patient satisfaction. Two fundamental principles that will be incorporated into a better healthcare system are:
1. The system will leverage technology to share data to drive decisions.
2. The system will be patient-centric.
A manifestation of this movement is the HITECH program which is driving adoption of EHR systems across the country. These EHR systems are becoming the technology backbone of the new healthcare system.
There is a fundamental gap in this approach. The current EHR technology being widely adopted is not patient centric. Their genesis is in billing and practice management. EHRs, and companion PHRs, while electronically capturing clinical information in a standardized manner, were not designed as communication tools and fall short in effectively engaging consumers in their care.
An enterprise engagement platform featuring integrated CRM and PRM functionality offers an existing technology solution that can provide the communication platform to deliver a single patient view guaranteeing patient-centric communication throughout the continuum of care. With more affiliated and employed physician practices, the starting point can be co-branded, omni-channel campaigns informed by the CRM/PRM data suite. When executed correctly in partnership with providers, the foundation for patient-centric care will be established at first encounter with the health system. Through collaboration with the clinical stakeholders at the point of care, a robust communication platform can be utilized to drive communications during and after an acute care visit. The goal is that the emerging US healthcare system will not only feature interoperable EHRs but will demand data driven patient-centric communications as can be provided by an integrated enterprise engagement platform.
To read more about this topic, please download our complete white paper, “A Patient-Centric Approach to Addressing Fragmentation in Healthcare: Leveraging your Enterprise Engagement Platform for a Single Patient View.”
Gary Druckenmiller, Jr. functions as lead strategist, digital marketing thought leader and C-level executive sponsor for all of Evariant’s enterprise clients, primarily focused on advising health system leadership of opportunistic methods to improve their digital presence and interactive growth potential. Prior to Evariant, Gary served as Vice-President for Harte-Hanks, responsible for healthcare digital strategy and deliverables including multi-channel campaigns, paid digital media, social media, CRM and analytics. Gary has been with Evariant for 5 years and can be heard often on the hospital marketing speaking circuit. Gary has a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Bentley University.
Jessica Friedeman serves Evariant as Director, Presales Engineer, providing technical and industry support in the sales process. Leveraging over a decade of experience in the healthcare industry, Jessica works closely with the sales team to mold customer requirements to Evariant’s offering and acts as a key connection between Evariant’s product development and organization’s customers.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker’s Hospital Review/Becker’s Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.
