From Skepticism to Success: Goodall Witcher’s Blueprint for Rural Health Innovation

I’d encourage you to listen to the audio interview that I posted on May 22, 2025. It is great to be able to celebrate Goodall Wicher’s success engaging the elderly and increasing vaccination rates, yet it is even more important to dissect why they were successful so others can learn and apply to their needs too.

First, a bit of background. To survive, rural hospitals must engage their community and provide convenient services to keep them healthy. This is both their mission and a financial imperative to remain in business. They must figure this out.

Goodall Witcher started with the goal of increasing flu clinic participation. Their population is retired and at higher risk for complications of the flu than younger and healthier populations. Like many hospitals who own clinics, they have value-based care contracts and goals which are critical to their success. Here are key factors that made them successful:

• The Board set high expectations
  The board set high expectations for staff to support the community and organization, and they named a person responsible for accomplishing the goals. 

• They accepted that their portal wasn’t the solution
  Portals are good to react to patients who log in to accomplish an objective such as reviewing test results or messaging their doctor. Most portals are unable to provide the proactive, population-level outreach that is required to contact unengaged patients and influence them to act. 

• They accepted that adding this to staff’s responsibilities would not work
  Hiring is a challenge for all healthcare organizations, especially rural organizations. With critical staffing shortages and up to 40% of staff time already spent on administrative tasks, simply providing staff lists of patients with gaps in care to call is not a viable option.  And it doesn’t work. Organizations that I talk with have estimated that with a phone-based approach they call 10% of the patients who need to be contacted. 

• They were willing to challenge and test their assumptions
  Like many healthcare professionals, they were skeptical that their retired population would respond to text-based outreach. I get this objection so often and it can’t be farther from the truth. Skeptical? Check out our client experience and national data here.

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• They were willing to try something new and different
  Goodall Witcher has a relationship with my employer, QliqSOFT and license Quincy, QliqSOFT’s digital engagement platform. Could Quincy address their population health needs?
  
  They reached out and asked QliqSOFT for alternative ways to engage their population. Using the Quincy digital engagement platform, they:
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  • Provided a list of patients who needed flu shots and their mobile numbers
  • Sent automated proactive outreach to the entire list, providing information on the importance of the flu shot with the times and locations they were holding flu clinics
  • Asked each person who came to the flu clinic how they learned about it

• They measured and analyzed the results
  In year one Goodall Witcher tripled flu clinic attendance. Using patient reports of how they learned about the flu clinic, they discovered that 53 of the 65 (82%) of patients that showed up came because of the  proactive digital outreach that they received from Quincy .

• They applied lessons learned to the next initiative
  Rinse, repeat, expand. In year 2, Goodall Witcher doubled vaccine attendance over the first year. Now they are exploring using QliqSOFT’s digital communication platform with conversational assistants to increase Annual Wellness Visits.

Goodall Witcher’s journey is a powerful reminder that meaningful change in healthcare requires both courage and creativity. By setting clear expectations, challenging old assumptions, and embracing innovative digital tools, they not only improved their outcomes but also set a blueprint for other rural hospitals facing similar challenges. Their willingness to learn, adapt, and measure results has made a tangible difference in their community’s health. As we celebrate their success, let’s also take these lessons to heart—because when we’re open to new approaches and committed to continuous improvement, we can all help build healthier, more resilient communities.

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