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
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Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) located in Worcester, MA
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Family Medicine Residency Site
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Provides Primary Care, Urgent Care, Dental, Behavioral and Social services
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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.
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.
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
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Tracking the encounters for billing and reimbursement purposes
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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
Dr. Rebecca Blumhofer, MD
Family Medicine Physician
Family Health Center of Worcester
"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."