Description: Seeking a unique way to stand out that the competitors couldn’t match, McGreevy Clinic Avera focused on utilizing online technologies to improve their level of service outside the traditional office visit. The concept would enable patients to request appointments online anytime, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from the comfort of their home. Discover the process from concept to roll out for launching a full-fledged online appointment request system, including the ROI results.

[Jake and I are sitting in the back and are going to attempt to multi-blog this one. Feedback and/or questions are welcome as always!]

11:03 (AH): Session just started – this is something I’m personally interested in, as we aren’t currently set up to accept online appointments (which we really need to be).

11:05 (AH): Corporate Evangelist… Hmm – what does that mean really?

11:07 (AH): Ah yes, implementation process – I would definitely agree with Dillon’s statement about the political and system buy-in being almost more difficult than the technical aspect of it.

11:12 (AH): So far, pretty much going over the background behind why Avera McKennan initiated online appointment requests.

11:17 (AH): Again, just going over the basics of the online appointment request – I’m really interested in seeing what roadblocks they ran into and how they overcame them.

11:22 (JB): Paying attn to HIPAA policies; sounds like they have some strict compliance policies to deal with. Process isn’t completely automated and impersonal (a plus, IMO) as requestors will be contacted by a real live human bean in the immediate future. Instant gratification is nice, but healthcare still needs the human touch.

11:25 (JB): The insurance question: how much can you do online – legally? Ins is still collected @ the time of the appt (standard ofice practice) but looking to implement the process online as well. Possibly broken out as a separate process?

11:26 (JB): PROMOTION! All the traditional methods (tv/radio/print – news/mags). PR pitch to media, billboards, transit ads, direct mail, lobby displays & other promo mat’l. BIG push.

11:28 (JB): Ad spending: Radio = vast majority (~45%), then TVm Transit, newspaper banners, signage, newspaper ads, direct mailing, promotional items (magnets), directory. Last 4 items total ~10%.

11:34 (AH): I wonder if they included any way to eliminate some of the paperwork that goes into each office visit. If not, that’s really the next step – online appointment request is good, but being able to prereg is where the value add comes in.

11:34 (JB): That might take a while; it sounds like the insurance portion still falls under the SOP for the office visit. I wonder if we’ll ever see that move to a kiosk-type process for users who do not use the online registration? That way it’d consolidate all the office visitors regardless of how they made their appointment. I wonder what their promotional budget was …

11:35 (AH): Right, right – probably more than anything either of us have to work with. It sounds like they really rolled it out heavy.

11:35 (JB): … don’t think I need see what their billboard ads were though. :-/

11:35 (AH): This has almost turned into an overview of what they’ve done for advertising, and less about the actual online aspect.

11:36 (JB): Media/PR: got stories printed in local news & TV; talked w/ doc; video in patient’s home. (AH): Yea, they definitely are proud of how much press they got out of this. Which is cool, don’t get me wrong – but I’m here to hear about the actual online appointment request. Not how well they’ve done.

11:39 (AH): Finally! They’re going to talk about the implementation process. With 20 minutes to go we’re getting down to the meat of the issue.

(JB): Good idea; using an ‘older generation’ example for the interview & live demonstration. Buy-in: Administration > clinician > schedulin

(AH): Showing the administration WHY this was so important was the most crucial part. Obviously once you get their support and approval, it’s easier to get the support and approval of all the other departments.

(JB): We just had a question about what the ROI measurements and results were. Jamey’s response was: “ROI was difficult to measure”. This is really disappointing.

(AH): Exactly, we need to have proof of how successful. There’s got to be a way to give hard numbers to leaders. How are we supposed to say: “Look! Look how much business we’ve brought you!” if we can’t track it?

2:51 (JB): I would expect those metrics to be spelled out as the advance pitch to the Admin staff in order to ensure their buy-in. I mean, nothing is going to sell an idea to executive management like the ability to track your project and prove either how much money it’s saving and/or generating. I guess that’s what we need to take away from their case study.

2:53 (JB): oooh, results! Obviously, the majority of activity is during the workday. Like most normal business traffic. Tapers off around quittin’ time, but appears to remain constant until David Letterman comes on, anyway. Monday is the peak traffic day, tapering off to Saturday.

New patients: 9.42%; returning: 90.58%. Do new patients have more hoops to jump through (I might expect so)?

2:59 (JB): “How did you hear?” count, in order of positive result: TV, Other, Website, Radio, Direct mail, Friend or family, Physician, Billboard. Another take away when it comes to budgeting marketing dollars.

Broken down by new vs returning patients: Other, Friends & family, Website generated best ‘new patient’ result

Age distribution: babies/newborn highest by far; but a consistent distribution of people from 20-50, tapering off somewhat after that.

Average response time & appointments resolved w/in a 24 hour period.

3:05 (JB): Can’t track actual revenue? (Odd.) But approx revenue = $400k. (my opinion – this isn’t relevant unless they can tell us how they arrived at this figure … )

What’s next:

• Further automation of the entire process
• Access to more detailed information regarding the appt
• Option for phone call responses

Conclusion:

• Online appt request provide significant value (more proof would’ve been nice)
• Significant effort to roll out successfully
• Promotion important to build awareness
• Work proactively to engage the constituencues that will be impacted to build engagement

Ya think? /sarcasm

–

Presenters

Jamey Zerr
Webmaster
Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center

Ben Dillon
VP, Corporate Evangelist
Geonetric

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Aaron Holbrook, Jake Bunger, healthcare internet conference 2007, liveblog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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