Improving patient relationships and outcomes for a private equity-backed post-acute healthcare provider
Over the years, different teams at a private equity-backed post-acute healthcare provider developed initiatives to engage their patient community, recognizing that they were falling behind when it came to patient engagement. But, without a cohesive plan or executive alignment, the efforts never got traction.
Patient engagement solutions are critical; Studies show that patients have better outcomes when healthcare providers engage them throughout their healthcare journey. But, the healthcare provider only engaged patients when they sought care, and, crucial feedback uncovered that patients and their loved ones were confused by the technical language being used to describe their rehab performance. Without a patient-facing app and clear, understandable language, the provider had no way to communicate information regularly with patients and family or build direct relationships when patients weren’t in their care.
Service Line:
Customer Experience
Industry:
Healthcare
Region:
North America
Goal:
Improve patient relationship, satisfaction, and outcomes
Strategy:
Engage rehab patients throughout healthcare journey with a customer-facing app
Results:
Significant adoption of the app across 100+ facilities while reducing patient length of stay and readmission
Without in-house resources to support the research, development, go-to-market, and change management of an end-to-end healthcare solution, the healthcare provider engaged Manifold thanks to proven innovation, technology expertise, a multidisciplinary team, process and focus on ROI. The provider also knew that Manifold could deliver a best-in-class UX/UI while integrating into existing systems, including an EHR.
Because the client had tried to get similar initiatives off the ground in the past, Manifold’s first step was helping the client prioritize its existing initiatives and driving consensus among stakeholders as to additional opportunities. For example, the team saw an opportunity to drive increased satisfaction and better outcomes with a digital summary of a patient’s stay, a post discharge follow up program and a health literacy assessment. The prioritized initiatives were packaged up into a holistic patient and family engagement plan. With a cohesive plan and executive alignment, the discovery work could begin.
More than 200 clinicians and patients were interviewed during the discovery process, followed by stakeholder workshops, which informed the ideation and prototyping of a first-in-class patient-centric digital solution. An engineering, design, and strategy team was assembled to guide the development of the app. The goal was to give patients and their loved-ones a way to communicate with the care team and get up-to-date progress-related information that they could easily understand.
With deep healthcare experience, Manifold tackled the language challenge by establishing a meaningful translation between Functional Improvement Metrics (clinical language) and laypersons’ terms, ensuring that all content in the app was easy to read and understand.
The app, which relied on both clinician and patient engagement, required heavy investment in quality assurance and user acceptance testing to ensure success. Manifold worked within the client’s security and change management frameworks, holding developers accountable to product, business, and operational requirements.
Finally, Manifold stood up the client’s first-ever corporate-wide tech support apparatus outside of IT support to interface with non-employees. This service drove increased satisfaction by employees and patients and their families and provided a critical feedback loop to drive improvements over time, resulting in consistent MoM growth for 52 months.
But the work didn’t end with the release of the app. Manifold closely monitored results and developed action plans to increase key metrics based on user feedback. In addition, the client team was training on in-field UX research to bring the voice of the customer into all digital initiatives going forward, providing value for years to come.
As a result of the patient engagement program, the healthcare provider is expecting to drive better health outcomes, including:
- Greater patient satisfaction and market reputation
- In-stay readmission rate improvement (1pp)
Patients in 133 facilities utilized the app to stay apprised of their rehab progress
- In 2021, 7,400 users registered and logged in an average of 15 times per stay to engage with their therapists and stay apprised of their progress
Another initiative within the program is expected to deliver the following results for stroke patients:
- Reduction in pressure injury development
- Reduction in falls
- Improvement in QI measures
- Increase in percentage of patients keeping their PCP appointments (post-discharge)
- Increase in delivery of education on smoking cessation and blood pressure information provided to patient
- Increase rin ate of screening fall risk in first 24 hrs of admission
- Improvement in accuracy of quality metrics
Finally, as a result of the engagement, the healthcare provider is expected to receive the following business results:
- Incremental EBITDA over a 5-year period
- LoS reduction (3%)
- Decrease in RN turnover (5pp)
- Clear PFE long-term vision
- Stronger compliance with Review Choice Demonstration (RCD)
- Selling point with prospective hospital partners
- Transferrable to additional care settings (e.g., BH)
Ready to learn more about how Manifold Group can help you transform your business? Reach out today to speak with an expert.
Ready to learn more about how Manifold Group can help you transform your business?
Reach out today to speak with an expert.
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