(This article was originally published in Healthcare Call Center Times in February 2021.)
Willis-Knighton Health System is a not-for-profit health system and the largest healthcare provider in northwest Louisiana, with 400 providers and 7,100 employees. Along with four hospitals, its network includes a rehabilitation institute, extended care center, skilled nursing center, five wellness centers and a senior living community.
The web and digital management department at Willis-Knighton manages about 100 websites, including hospitals, clinics, urgent care centers and its aging-in-place community.
The Problem
The state of Louisiana shut down due to coronavirus by mid-March. Months later, patients and their parents still were not comfortable keeping appointments for checkups, immunizations, elective procedures and other appointments.
“The environment is changing day to day” during the Covid-19 outbreak, said Director of Web and Digital Management James Bobbitt. “Every problem Covid-19 has presented to us, we’re thinking, how can we use technology to turn the tide and keep patients healthy?”
“Every problem Covid-19 has presented to us, we’re thinking, how can we use technology to turn the tide and keep patients healthy?”
Willis-Knighton was seeking additional ways to communicate with patients. Most patient communications, such as follow-up information and requests for reviews, had been triggered by a visit. But the health system needed another method of mass messaging its patients and providers about important, timely information.
Its first attempt at using a mass-messaging campaign to contact patients about telemedicine availability—which was new to the health system—cost the organization too much time and too many human resources. It took weeks to prepare and approve, along with six employees and a vendor. One-way text messages did engage patients and generate website visits and appointments, but the process needed to improve.
As Covid-19 progressed, pediatric parents were not keeping their children’s wellness visits, causing immunizations to fall behind. Willis-Knighton needed to send a TCPA-compliant message to remind parents of the importance of immunizations and invite them to make an appointment.
The Solution
Bobbitt and the health system’s leaders engaged Binary Fountain’s Messaging platform to provide a fast, efficient process for sending these crucial patient communications.
First, Willis-Knighton crafted a message for pediatric patients and parents/guardians, directing them to its landing page for immunization appointments.
It then pulled phone numbers from its EHR system for patients who had been seen in the past year and sent the list to the Binary Fountain team, who returned a spreadsheet for Bobbitt to upload. Having already used Mobile Testimonials campaigns, configuration and setup for the “Immunization Reminder” campaign took under 10 minutes.
On that same day, the text message was successfully sent to the phones of more than 45,000 parents or guardians.
The message included a link to a landing page that informed parents/guardians that clinics were open, focused on the importance of immunizations during Covid-19, and displayed immunization schedules and links for doctor information.
The Results
Willis-Knighton’s previous mass message about immunizations using email effectively generated calls to schedule wellness visits, but it only reached 8 percent of its pediatric patient population.
Although the Binary Fountain-powered SMS campaign had 80 percent fewer patients than its in-house telemedicine text campaign, the immunization reminder generated nearly the same amount of website visits. It also recorded double its average number of calls that day and the following day in most of its pediatric clinics.
“Phones were ringing off the hooks in a vast majority of our clinics,” Bobbitt said. “Physicians were happy and clinics were happy that parents were calling to make sure they were up to date or schedule appointments.”
With the support of text messaging campaigns, online appointment requests increased 66 percent in May, 101 percent in June, and 93 percent in July.
Following the success of this and other mobile text messaging initiatives, the healthcare organization plans to roll out more Messaging and Mobile Testimonials campaigns in coming months. Meanwhile, Willis-Knighton is adding hundreds more providers to its Binary Fountain-powered review management strategy, which in less than a year has helped raise average star ratings from 1.9 to 4.2 in its urgent care facilities.
Willis-Knighton is adding hundreds more providers to its Binary Fountain-powered review management strategy, which in less than a year has helped raise average star ratings from 1.9 to 4.2 in its urgent care facilities.
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