Krishna Kurapati,
CEO and Founder,
QliqSOFT, Inc.
Bobbi Weber,
V.P., Portfolio Management
& Field Strategist
QliqSOFT, Inc.
Krishna Kurapati,
CEO and Founder,
QliqSOFT, Inc.
Bobbi Weber,
V.P., Portfolio Management
& Field Strategist
QliqSOFT, Inc.
The digital front door is a virtual means for consumers to interact with a health system or hospital, integrated with in-person services, whether the consumer is present or not in the facility. A true digital front door moves past today’s fragmented services to create a cohesive and holistic experience for the consumer, setting the foundation for adoption of virtual communication.
The term “consumer” is interchangeable with “customer.” We acknowledge growing consumerism where individuals increasingly expect a convenient, customer-centric experience with a menu of choices to receive care outside of traditional delivery models.
The digital front door is a virtual means for consumers to interact with a health system or hospital, integrated with in-person services, whether the consumer is present or not in the facility. A true digital front door moves past today’s fragmented services to create a cohesive and holistic experience for the consumer, setting the foundation for adoption of virtual communication.
The term “consumer” is interchangeable with “customer”. We acknowledge growing consumerism where individuals increasingly expect a convenient, customer-centric experience with a menu of choices to receive care outside of traditional delivery models.
Adopting a virtual care delivery model that effectively integrates the right level of digital technology requires a deep understanding of how to address the patient’s needs through a combination of technology, workflow and governance changes. The model encompasses both pull and push actions, the first being patient-initiated with the latter health system-driven. Both serve to connect, defragment and streamline the patient journey, making it easier to conduct business with the health system.
It is important to note that the digital front door goes far beyond creating a portal. Rather, it is a digital-first, organization-wide mindset to address rising consumer expectations for convenience and simplicity. Digital enablement or intelligent automation requires looking at and connecting the experience from the consumer’s perspective, anticipating and responding to what they need instead of focusing on the specific tasks healthcare staff (clinic, labs, etc.) must complete to provide care.
Here are examples of how one set of digital interactions can improve the patient experience and deliver operational, staffing and financial results.
Adopting a virtual care delivery model that effectively integrates the right level of digital technology requires a deep understanding of how to address the patient’s needs through a combination of technology, workflow and governance changes. The model encompasses both pull and push actions, the first being patient-initiated with the latter health system-driven. Both serve to connect, defragment and streamline the patient journey, making it easier to conduct business with the health system.
It is important to note that the digital front door goes far beyond creating a portal. Rather, it is a digital-first, organization-wide mindset to address rising consumer expectations for convenience and simplicity. Digital enablement or intelligent automation requires looking at and connecting the experience from the consumer’s perspective, anticipating and responding to what they need instead of focusing on the specific tasks healthcare staff (clinic, labs, etc.) must complete to provide care.
Here are examples of how one set of digital interactions can improve the patient experience and deliver operational, staffing and financial results.
“48% of healthcare workers are concerned about their health system’s ability to retain and hire staff if they do not prioritize automation”
The evidence is clear that AI-powered programs, implemented across inpatient, ambulatory and post-acute care settings, already have a strong track record of proven results. Early adopters are realizing tangible growth with measurable outcomes, not the least of which are operational and staffing improvements, and financial gains.
We will examine healthcare’s top concerns, how a range of innovative, digitally enabled strategies are making a difference, and the emergence of entirely new patient care and business models. While the goal with AI is to simplify the provider and consumer experience, the benefits are much greater, resulting in higher patient satisfaction and quality of care, while reducing staff burden and costs and helping to create a high-performance, caring culture.
The ongoing impact of the COVID-19 endemic has intensified worker burnout and contributed to the Great Resignation. This has resulted in critical staffing shortages across the healthcare industry ─ and little relief is in sight. Staff shortage challenges are “the nation’s top safety concern.”
The ongoing impact of the COVID-19 endemic has intensified worker burnout and contributed to the Great Resignation. This has resulted in critical staffing shortages across the healthcare industry ─ and little relief is in sight. Staff shortage challenges are “the nation’s top safety concern.”
First Choice Neurology, the largest U.S. private practice neurology group throughout South Florida, applied this approach to fully automate patient intake at smaller clinics. QliqSOFT’s digital strategy proved so successful that First Choice Neurology eliminated the need for an FTE position.
First Choice Neurology implemented digital self-service to empower its patients to perform routine activities online, including scheduling appointments, completing insurance forms for pre-approval, and accessing test results at home or any location at their convenience. They also initiated medical chatbots to consult their doctors or other clinicians about pre- and post-visit clinical concerns and outcomes. The results – an 18% decrease in overtime while improving clinic revenue by 10-15%.
“...It also reduced our overtime by 18% while improving clinic revenue by 10-15%.”
Jose Rocha, Director of Corporate Business Office Performance Medical Management at First Choice Neurology
First Choice Neurology, the largest U.S. private practice neurology group throughout South Florida, applied this approach to fully automate patient intake at smaller clinics. QliqSOFT’s digital strategy proved so successful that First Choice Neurology eliminated the need for an FTE position.
First Choice Neurology implemented digital self-service to empower its patients to perform routine activities online, including scheduling appointments, completing insurance forms for pre-approval, and accessing test results at home or any location at their convenience. They also initiated medical chatbots to consult their doctors or other clinicians about pre- and post-visit clinical concerns and outcomes. The results – an 18% decrease in overtime while improving clinic revenue by 10-15%.
“...It also reduced our overtime by 18% while improving clinic revenue by 10-15%.”
Jose Rocha, Director of Corporate Business Office Performance Medical Management at First Choice Neurology
Today’s consumer is accustomed to digital engagement in other aspects of their life and now expects this as part of clinical care. Patients are smarter, more skeptical, and have more options in healthcare than ever before. In today’s pandemic-affected world, their expectations have shifted to expecting seamless transactions and engagement online. Here are examples of what matters to them:
Today’s consumer is accustomed to digital engagement in other aspects of their life and now expects this as part of clinical care. Patients are smarter, more skeptical, and have more options in healthcare than ever before. In today’s pandemic-affected world, their expectations have shifted to expecting seamless transactions and engagement online. Here are examples of what matters to them:
“We learned that meeting patients when, where, and how they want to receive care is the foundation of quality virtual care, especially the use of chatbots.”
Angela Skrzynski, D.O., clinical lead for the urgent care telehealth, COVID remote patient monitoring and Care after COVID programs at Virtua Health
Virtua Health is a nonprofit, comprehensive community healthcare system with five hospitals, seven urgent care centers, and 280-plus locations across southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, supporting more than one million patient encounters annually.
Like many health institutions nationwide, COVID-19 prompted Virtua to launch consumer-facing patient engagement solutions to manage the outbreak more proactively. At the same time, patients expected Virtua Health to deliver the same convenient, consumer-friendly digital capabilities they have become accustomed to in other aspects of their lives. Patients also wanted to engage with their providers online quickly and conveniently.
The health system’s Digital Transformation Office and fully remote virtual digital health practice has driven a multitude of initiatives such as six virtual care programs including a hospital-at-home program and much more.
Partnering with QliqSOFT to implement a new web-based collaboration platform, Virtua Health succeeded in meeting rising consumer expectations to use digital services. A testament to that fact, the health enterprise’s digital health tools achieved a world-class Net Promoter Score of 80 reflecting high patient satisfaction.
An internal survey of staff users and patients conducted in July 2021 found:
With a projected shortage of nearly 140,000 physicians by 2033, and a shortage of three million lower-wage healthcare workers in the next five years, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy sounded the alarm on the country's ongoing healthcare burnout crisis in May 2022.
If burnout, worker shortages and increased time spent on repetitive tasks were not serious enough issues, there’s pressure on healthcare input costs. Rising healthcare staff labor costs per adjusted hospital discharge grew 25% between 2019 and 2022, reported McKinsey & Company. Analysts added that the worsening clinical labor shortage is a significant contributor to the projected increase in healthcare costs over the next five years.
Now is the time to reduce time spent on manual repetitive tasks by embracing the use of robotic process automation (RPA) tools in your clinics, the hospital and post-acute care facilities. AI-enabled tools streamline practice operations and reduce time-consuming, routine tasks.
Organizations can automate common reasons for inbound telephone calls such as scheduling or changing a patient appointment, refilling medication, registering patients for classes, and more with RPA. By adopting RPA, staff can focus on performing higher-level needs and interactions that require a skilled resource to provide a consistent consumer experience.
Digital technologies can create or modify business processes, culture, and customer experiences to help healthcare organizations grow and stay ahead of the competition. Identified are two key areas ─ referral leakage and patient no-shows ─ that are costing hospitals and practices revenue and are ripe for RPA.
Prevent referral leakage. Avoidable referral leakage may account for about $100 to $500 million in revenue loss annually for many health systems. This is due to a referral system that still relies on paper documents and faxing and the patient to self-manage their referral. The result is the patient choosing to go out of network seeking a specialist or simply giving up after confronting too many barriers pursuing a referral in our current fragmented health system.
With tight margins, incentive revenue for providers can be the difference between a profitable year or a loss.
Healthcare leaders can optimize quality measure performance and engage patients through proactive digital campaign outreach and streamlined operations, all the while improving patient outcomes. Going digital can also help alleviate health disparities in our healthcare infrastructure by proactively engaging patients lost to follow-up and healthcare access. Virtual healthcare can help providers engage individuals and underserved populations in marginalized communities.
According to Donald Hooker, CFA, an equity research analyst for 15+ years covering digital health, a major challenge to success in value-based reimbursement is healthcare’s fragmented and siloed systems. The good news is that legislative and regulatory actions are addressing these interoperability challenges. The 21st Century Cures Act, for instance, is opening closed systems and giving AI and machine learning access to larger data sets. This improved data access, in turn, identifies new insights that positively impact patient outcomes and population health.
“We learned that meeting patients when, where, and how they want to receive care is the foundation of quality virtual care, especially the use of chatbots.”
Angela Skrzynski, D.O., clinical lead for the urgent care telehealth, COVID remote patient monitoring and Care after COVID programs at Virtua Health
Virtua Health is a nonprofit, comprehensive community healthcare system with five hospitals, seven urgent care centers, and 280-plus locations across southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, supporting more than one million patient encounters annually.
Like many health institutions nationwide, COVID-19 prompted Virtua to launch consumer-facing patient engagement solutions to manage the outbreak more proactively. At the same time, patients expected Virtua Health to deliver the same convenient, consumer-friendly digital capabilities they have become accustomed to in other aspects of their lives. Patients also wanted to engage with their providers online quickly and conveniently.
The health system’s Digital Transformation Office and fully remote virtual digital health practice has driven a multitude of initiatives such as six virtual care programs including a hospital-at-home program and much more.
Partnering with QliqSOFT to implement a new web-based collaboration platform, Virtua Health succeeded in meeting rising consumer expectations to use digital services. A testament to that fact, the health enterprise’s digital health tools achieved a world-class Net Promoter Score of 80 reflecting high patient satisfaction.
An internal survey of staff users and patients conducted in July 2021 found:
With a projected shortage of nearly 140,000 physicians by 2033, and a shortage of three million lower-wage healthcare workers in the next five years, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy sounded the alarm on the country's ongoing healthcare burnout crisis in May 2022.
If burnout, worker shortages and increased time spent on repetitive tasks were not serious enough issues, there’s pressure on healthcare input costs. Rising healthcare staff labor costs per adjusted hospital discharge grew 25% between 2019 and 2022, reported McKinsey & Company. Analysts added that the worsening clinical labor shortage is a significant contributor to the projected increase in healthcare costs over the next five years.
Now is the time to reduce time spent on manual repetitive tasks by embracing the use of robotic process automation (RPA) tools in your clinics, the hospital and post-acute care facilities. AI-enabled tools streamline practice operations and reduce time-consuming, routine tasks.
Organizations can automate common reasons for inbound telephone calls such as scheduling or changing a patient appointment, refilling medication, registering patients for classes, and more with RPA. By adopting RPA, staff can focus on performing higher-level needs and interactions that require a skilled resource to provide a consistent consumer experience.
Digital technologies can create or modify business processes, culture, and customer experiences to help healthcare organizations grow and stay ahead of the competition. Identified are two key areas ─ referral leakage and patient no-shows ─ that are costing hospitals and practices revenue and are ripe for RPA.
Prevent referral leakage. Avoidable referral leakage may account for about $100 to $500 million in revenue loss annually for many health systems. This is due to a referral system that still relies on paper documents and faxing and the patient to self-manage their referral. The result is the patient choosing to go out of network seeking a specialist or simply giving up after confronting too many barriers pursuing a referral in our current fragmented health system.
With tight margins, incentive revenue for providers can be the difference between a profitable year or a loss.
Healthcare leaders can optimize quality measure performance and engage patients through proactive digital campaign outreach and streamlined operations, all the while improving patient outcomes. Going digital can also help alleviate health disparities in our healthcare infrastructure by proactively engaging patients lost to follow-up and healthcare access. Virtual healthcare can help providers engage individuals and underserved populations in marginalized communities.
According to Donald Hooker, CFA, an equity research analyst for 15+ years covering digital health, a major challenge to success in value-based reimbursement is healthcare’s fragmented and siloed systems. The good news is that legislative and regulatory actions are addressing these interoperability challenges. The 21st Century Cures Act, for instance, is opening closed systems and giving AI and machine learning access to larger data sets. This improved data access, in turn, identifies new insights that positively impact patient outcomes and population health.
As with most other areas of healthcare, Virtua Health adopted a digital approach to referral leakage. The community healthcare system created the “Cardiothoracic Pre-Operative Introduction” telehealth program. This clinical case scenario illustrates how the digitally enabled program works:
Immediately following a cardiac catheterization with abnormalities warranting cardiothoracic surgical evaluation, the patient can speak with a cardiothoracic surgeon in real time via a complimentary audiovisual encounter. Staff can add family members or other caretakers to the encounter; and this, in turn, allows real-time feedback from the operating surgeon to assist in the patient’s medical decision-making regarding next steps proceeding with surgery.
The cardiothoracic surgery virtual consultation services give Virtua Health the opportunity to reduce leakage by about 20 to 25 cases per quarter. With the national average cost for a single cardiovascular surgery ranging from $70,000 to $200,000, the payback on the complimentary virtual visit/consultation for an organization can range from $1.4 million to $5 million in additional revenue per year for just cardiothoracic surgeries.
As with most other areas of healthcare, Virtua Health adopted a digital approach to referral leakage. The community healthcare system created the “Cardiothoracic Pre-Operative Introduction” telehealth program. This clinical case scenario illustrates how the digitally enabled program works:
Immediately following a cardiac catheterization with abnormalities warranting cardiothoracic surgical evaluation, the patient can speak with a cardiothoracic surgeon in real time via a complimentary audiovisual encounter. Staff can add family members or other caretakers to the encounter; and this, in turn, allows real-time feedback from the operating surgeon to assist in the patient’s medical decision-making regarding next steps proceeding with surgery.
The cardiothoracic surgery virtual consultation services give Virtua Health the opportunity to reduce leakage by about 20 to 25 cases per quarter. With the national average cost for a single cardiovascular surgery ranging from $70,000 to $200,000, the payback on the complimentary virtual visit/consultation for an organization can range from $1.4 million to $5 million in additional revenue per year for just cardiothoracic surgeries.
AllianceChicago, a national network of more than seventy community health centers across nineteen states, tested an innovative mechanism to use chatbots for engaging families and caregivers in evidence-based preventive care for children.
They provided access of QliqSOFT Quincy’s conversational chatbots to personalize messages and facilitate appointment scheduling with parents and guardians who serve approximately 10,500 children, 82% identify as racial and ethnic minorities.
The app-less digital outreach reminded families in their preferred language of upcoming well-child visits and immunizations, provided anticipatory guidance materials from the CDC before the visit to enrich the dialogue and facilitated easy appointment scheduling of babies and children for well-child visits.
The healthcare chatbot campaign simultaneously sent texts to multiple individuals whose children are within two weeks of needing a recommended wellness visit and vaccines. From the text message, recipients launched either an English- or Spanish-language Well-Child chatbot from their smartphone which guided them through a predefined automated conversation that provided age-specific education, asked predefined questions, and gave guidance based on recipient answers.
Key findings revealed that despite the pandemic, healthcare chatbots facilitated a relative increase in well-child visits and immunizations by 27% in the intervention group. Well-child visits and immunizations in the intervention group also demonstrated an increase of 13% compared to the usual care group. Survey results of patients and clinician interviews indicated a high level of satisfaction using a healthcare chatbot.
AllianceChicago, a national network of more than seventy community health centers across nineteen states, tested an innovative mechanism to use chatbots for engaging families and caregivers in evidence-based preventive care for children.
They provided access of QliqSOFT Quincy’s conversational chatbots to personalize messages and facilitate appointment scheduling with parents and guardians who serve approximately 10,500 children, 82% identify as racial and ethnic minorities.
The app-less digital outreach reminded families in their preferred language of upcoming well-child visits and immunizations, provided anticipatory guidance materials from the CDC before the visit to enrich the dialogue and facilitated easy appointment scheduling of babies and children for well-child visits.
The healthcare chatbot campaign simultaneously sent texts to multiple individuals whose children are within two weeks of needing a recommended wellness visit and vaccines. From the text message, recipients launched either an English- or Spanish-language Well-Child chatbot from their smartphone which guided them through a predefined automated conversation that provided age-specific education, asked predefined questions, and gave guidance based on recipient answers.
Key findings revealed that despite the pandemic, healthcare chatbots facilitated a relative increase in well-child visits and immunizations by 27% in the intervention group. Well-child visits and immunizations in the intervention group also demonstrated an increase of 13% compared to the usual care group. Survey results of patients and clinician interviews indicated a high level of satisfaction using a healthcare chatbot.
“Despite the pandemic, healthcare chatbots facilitated a relative increase in well-child visits and immunizations by 27% in the intervention group. ”
As patients have more choices, providers need to realign around patient-centric, digital-first solutions as a business imperative. The transition to consumer-driven healthcare makes every interaction, either in person or digital, increasingly critical to improve patient experience and achieve greater satisfaction. Two key areas that AI-powered tools address successfully are:
The road to digitally enabled care requires a transformation for everyone. Responding to competitive pressures is just one piece of the puzzle. It is important to select a versatile digital solution that creates a more customizable experience and can support the varied needs of the organization. Look for real-life provider use cases that quantify results.
Receive an alert communicating the need for preventive services
Reinforce the importance of acting
Link to self-scheduling to make an appointment
Send appointment confirmation and reminders, patient education and preprocedure instructions
Support remote check-in, sign consents, and scan insurance card
Patient shows up prepared for their appointment
Health systems have invested heavily over the past years in digital technologies. As digital health leaders navigate complex organizational cultures, dynamically evolving technologies and changing consumer online preferences, they are looking for trusted partnerships and governance support from within their organizations.
Virtua Health instituted an operational support department and governance model in the form of a Digital Transformation Office (DTO) to ensure that these new patient engagement models worked as advertised, garnered sufficient buy-in, benefited both patients and practitioners, and became ingrained in the organization’s caring culture and model of service.
Formed a strategic advisory committee to select the right digital solutions, safeguard sharing of health information, and drive adoption for those who do not immediately buy-in.
Involved key committee stakeholders ─ clinicians, nurses, legal, IT, operations and those affected by the specific business process under discussion — shared ideas and tactics to move a project forward.
Included a marketing employee, part of the committee, played the role of patient/consumer, providing valuable input into why a digital program should be launched and how a patient would interact.
To drive impact at scale, the committee cultivated digital champions who recognized the value of virtual care adoptation and its potential to transform manual to automated processes.
Formed a strategic advisory committee to select the right digital solutions, safeguard sharing of health information, and drive adoption for those who do not immediately buy-in.
Involved key committee stakeholders ─ clinicians, nurses, legal, IT, operations and those affected by the specific business process under discussion — shared ideas and tactics to move a project forward.
Included a marketing employee, part of the committee, played the role of patient/consumer, providing valuable input into why a digital program should be launched and how a patient would interact.
To drive impact at scale, the committee cultivated digital champions who recognized the value of virtual care adoptation and its potential to transform manual to automated processes.
As patients have more choices, providers need to realign around patient-centric, digital-first solutions as a business imperative. The transition to consumer-driven healthcare makes every interaction, either in person or digital, increasingly critical to improve patient experience and achieve greater satisfaction. Two key areas that AI-powered tools address successfully are:
The road to digitally enabled care requires a transformation for everyone. Responding to competitive pressures is just one piece of the puzzle. It is important to select a versatile digital solution that creates a more customizable experience and can support the varied needs of the organization. Look for real-life provider use cases that quantify results.
Receive an alert communicating the need for preventive services
Reinforce the importance of acting
Link to self-scheduling to make an appointment
Send appointment confirmation and reminders, patient education and preprocedure instructions
Support remote check-in, sign consents, and scan insurance card
Patient shows up prepared for their appointment
Health systems have invested heavily over the past years in digital technologies. As digital health leaders navigate complex organizational cultures, dynamically evolving technologies and changing consumer online preferences, they are looking for trusted partnerships and governance support from within their organizations.
Virtua Health instituted an operational support department and governance model in the form of a Digital Transformation Office (DTO) to ensure that these new patient engagement models worked as advertised, garnered sufficient buy-in, benefited both patients and practitioners, and became ingrained in the organization’s caring culture and model of service.
Formed a strategic advisory committee to select the right digital solutions, safeguard sharing of health information, and drive adoption for those who do not immediately buy-in.
Involved key committee stakeholders ─ clinicians, nurses, legal, IT, operations and those affected by the specific business process under discussion — shared ideas and tactics to move a project forward.
Included a marketing employee, part of the committee, played the role of patient/consumer, providing valuable input into why a digital program should be launched and how a patient would interact.
To drive impact at scale, the committee cultivated digital champions who recognized the value of virtual care adoptation and its potential to transform manual to automated processes.
Formed a strategic advisory committee to select the right digital solutions, safeguard sharing of health information, and drive adoption for those who do not immediately buy-in.
Involved key committee stakeholders ─ clinicians, nurses, legal, IT, operations and those affected by the specific business process under discussion — shared ideas and tactics to move a project forward.
Included a marketing employee, part of the committee, played the role of patient/consumer, providing valuable input into why a digital program should be launched and how a patient would interact.
To drive impact at scale, the committee cultivated digital champions who recognized the value of virtual care adoptation and its potential to transform manual to automated processes.
Governance puts a structure around projects and data points, helping organizations keep their focus on what is important. Virtua Health has identified evolving best practices that contribute to their success:
Expand. Find the next project, the next champions and metrics ─ and repeat again and again.
Be realistic. Expect 85% change management and 15% technology tools. As you are selecting the technology:
Expect (yes, do expect) to see immediate results. Digitizing manual processes delivers immediate impact. But recognize that optimizing process, policy, and technology are the norm after go-live, along with the need to plan for a period to make changes based on acquiring new knowledge.
Select a partner that focuses on results. Pre- and post-measures are critical to highlighting success, identifying where you can improve performance and have the most impact.
From automated patient communication, streamlined, clinical collaboration to operational efficiencies and lower costs, QliqSOFT is helping healthcare provider organizations establish enviable patient and care team experiences driving loyalty and retention. QliqSOFT implements Quincy virtual solutions quickly, with an organization netting measurable results in the first month.
Governance puts a structure around projects and data points, helping organizations keep their focus on what is important. Virtua Health has identified evolving best practices that contribute to their success:
Expand. Find the next project, the next champions and metrics ─ and repeat again and again.
Be realistic. Expect 85% change management and 15% technology tools. As you are selecting the technology:
Expect (yes, do expect) to see immediate results. Digitizing manual processes delivers immediate impact. But recognize that optimizing process, policy, and technology are the norm after go-live, along with the need to plan for a period to make changes based on acquiring new knowledge.
Select a partner that focuses on results. Pre- and post-measures are critical to highlighting success, identifying where you can improve performance and have the most impact.
From automated patient communication, streamlined, clinical collaboration to operational efficiencies and lower costs, QliqSOFT is helping healthcare provider organizations establish enviable patient and care team experiences driving loyalty and retention. QliqSOFT implements Quincy virtual solutions quickly, with an organization netting measurable results in the first month.
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