PATIENT EXPERIENCE

How Two Critical Access Hospitals Quickly Strengthened Their Digital Front Doors During the Pandemic

During the COVID-19 crisis, hospital and health system digital front doors have become more important than ever. At Lexington Regional Health Center in Nebraska, for example, strategy leaders acted quickly when the pandemic hit to educate their diverse patient base about coronavirus and adopt a telehealth platform focused on behavioral health.

Ann Young, a nurse practitioner who specializes in mental health, has been active in using telehealth to reach out to the communities served by Lexington Regional, which includes large Spanish- and Somali-speaking populations. “She is very concerned about patients feeling isolated and believes we need to be a proactive resource for them and provide options for access to care,” said Chief Strategy Officer Amy Schroeder

The hospital also deployed its bilingual chief medical officer and Somali staff interpreter on social media to connect with immigrant populations, finding further success. While a normal Facebook post might receive 300 views, the Lexington Regional’s messages during the height of the pandemic were recording 10 times that number. In addition, digital appointment reminders and a new online provider directory have been implemented.

“I would really encourage planners to think big and start small,” Schroeder said. “We quickly realized we weren’t going to be able to eat the elephant, so to speak. So, we went after items that we knew we could get quick, early wins on, and that has helped us gain and keep our momentum.” 

Where to Start

Prioritizing which digital initiatives to pursue first can be a daunting challenge, particularly given limited resources. For critical access providers such as Lexington Regional, the American Hospital Association’s (AHA’s) Digital Pulse helped serve as a jumping-off point.

The free tool allows AHA members to pinpoint existing resources in their organization that can help scale digital transformation and benchmark their capabilities against other industry leaders. Schroeder said one of the health center’s first steps to strengthening its digital strategy was taking the Digital Pulse assessment in September 2019 and beginning to identify “low hanging fruit.”

“We thought we were ahead of the curve, and then we took the assessment and realized, my goodness, we have some opportunities here,” she said.

Similarly, 25-bed Riverwood Healthcare Center, a critical access hospital in Minnesota’s Northwoods, also took the assessment. Liz Dean, executive director of strategy and business development, said using Digital Pulse — and collaborating with the AHA, vendor partners, community representatives and other hospitals — has helped hasten Riverwood’s digital transformation. Utilizing a similar “think big, start small” approach has produced results faster than expected.

When the pandemic reached Aitkin County, Dean and colleagues at Riverwood began seeking out ways to better connect with patients and improve the overall health care experience. Leaders had planned to launch provider video visits within 12-18 months, but to meet the suddenly pressing demand they streamlined the process and began offering the service in just 72 hours. It has since launched additional digital solutions, including a staff COVID screening tool, patient symptom checker, new chat feature, and online seminars to serve both patients and team members.

A few of the early success metrics:

• Since March, Riverwood has conducted nearly 6,000 virtual visits. 
• In the first three months, more than 900 patients used the symptom checker.
• Several thousand patients have participated in virtual seminars and forums.
• The hospital’s most recent digital launch was an employee COVID remote screening tool, which significantly reduced resource use while increasing efficiencies.

In November, Dean and colleagues also kicked off an Innovation90 project to dive deeper into their virtual experience. Using design thinking and rapid innovation, Riverwood is now in the process of developing a new prototype for its experience to better meets the needs of constituents.

“COVID-19 really catapulted change for us at a rapid pace, just like it has for many others,” said Dean. “The pandemic gave us a strong ‘why’ to begin tackling big problems that we needed to solve. While we were already in motion with a lot of these ideas, the crisis made us move much quicker and everyone came on board really fast.” 

Lessons Learned

Dean urges her peers in planning at other hospitals and health systems to use this to innovate quickly and pursue long-desired change. Other key steps included:

• Starting an “aggressive and progressive” project management platform to help prioritize and manage tasks.
• Implementing daily “team huddles” to enhance communication with staff, remove barriers and facilitate the accomplishment of established goals.

Her and Schroeder also emphasize the need for board engagement. At Lexington, staffers reported their findings from the Digital Pulse and provided updates on wins along the way. 

“We were extremely fortunate to have a board that celebrated the wins with us and supported a continued movement forward,” Schroeder said.

Dean believes rural strategy leaders should never hesitate to ask for assistance when tackling digital initiatives. “As a critical access hospital, we don’t have the resources that larger organizations possess, and there is such value in information sharing between large and small hospitals across our industry. Asking for help was easy and proved very valuable,” she said.

 

This article features interviews with:

Liz Dean
Executive Director of Strategy and Business Development
Riverwood Healthcare Center
Aitkin, Minnesota 

Amy Schroeder
Chief Strategy Officer
Lexington Regional Health Center
Lexington, Nebraska

Image credits: istockphoto.com/Ridofranz | istockphoto.com/Geber86