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CASE STUDY

Family Health Center of Worcester

How Family Health Center of Worcester solved for after-hours care and its impact on their providers, patients, and bottom line. 

WHO

  • ​Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) located in Worcester, MA 

  • Family Medicine Residency Site 

  • Provides Primary Care, Urgent Care, Dental, Behavioral and Social services 

  • Patient population is diverse, underserved and multi-lingual 

CHALLENGE

After losing their after-hours coverage that was being handled by their medical residents, Family Health Center of Worcester needed to quickly put a new program in place to fill this coverage gap. 

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Provider flexibility and participation was of utmost importance. Being short staffed, minimizing the administrative burden of scheduling and connecting patients with the right providers was also pertinent. 

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Other important considerations included:

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  • Finding a solution that allowed their providers to perform Telehealth and E-Visits without patients gaining access to their personal phone numbers 

  • Tracking the encounters for billing and reimbursement purposes 

  • Communicating with patients in their primary language and incorporating interpreter services when necessary 

APPROACH

Family Health Center of Worcester partnered with HealthTalk A.I., whose AI-assisted patient engagement platform includes on-demand "rideshare model" Telehealth capabilities with the flexibility and customization they needed. 

RESULTS

HealthTalk A.I. helped Family Health Center of Worcester streamline their after-hours Telehealth process. Patients have been extremely receptive to its multi-language capabilities and ease of use (no downloads or login credentials needed).

In the first two months, Family Health Center of Worcester completed 260 adult, on-demand care requests (42% billed as after-hours Telehealth visits) and 19 pedi care requests (62% billed as after-hours Telehealth visits)

Provider retention has improved by allowing providers who want to deliver on-demand Telehealth the flexibility to do so from wherever they are located

On-demand after-hours Telehealth is keeping more patients out of the emergency room

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Dr. Rebecca Blumhofer, MD
Family Medicine Physician
Family Health Center of Worcester

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"The process of working with HealthTalk A.I. to customize our after-hours program has enabled us to develop a solution for safe, effective, on-demand Telehealth care with analytics and QI/QA reporting all included." 

"We have been able to create a simple and streamlined workflow in a very short amount of time that allows our patients to be seen in a timely manner, at any time, without leaving their homes." 

Amanda Ryder
Sr. Application Analyst
Family Health Center of Worcester

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