Case Study

A Custom-Built Scheduling Solution Puts Control Back in Patients’ Hands

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Challenge

For one major medical group and health insurance provider in the U.S., connected care pathways not only boost operational efficiency, but also form the foundation for preventative healthcare. So when the group’s leaders in a major metropolitan region found that disconnected, manual processes were reducing patients’ access to life-saving mammogram testing, they knew they had to act.

The group’s healthcare providers typically scheduled mammograms by reaching out directly to patients ages 50 to 75 to encourage testing. But their existing datasets didn’t identify patients outside of that age range who experienced symptoms of breast cancer or had high risk factors, leaving many out of the appointment scheduling process entirely.

Additionally, the group’s call centers and medical facilities lacked the staffing resources to effectively engage all patients individually. As patients encountered clunky systems that required them to call into facilities for scheduling, the number of screening appointments made were adversely affected.

Operational leaders knew they needed to implement technologies that eliminated manual scheduling calls, expanded their patient scope, and allowed patients to conveniently schedule appointments directly from their preferred device. That’s why they turned to Elxo.

Solution

The Elxo team created a bespoke scheduling software solution that enabled patients to easily select a facility location, date, and time from a secure, individualized link. The solution would then quickly transcribe that data, turning it into a scheduled appointment on the facility’s calendar.

After vetting dozens of solutions over a six-month period, the group chose Elxo because of both the immense value they received for their investment and the swift agility Elxo brought to the project. Within eight weeks, the healthcare consulting and software development company built a custom solution from scratch, responding to regular requests for edits within 24 hours to ensure the product met the medical group’s specific needs.

The group then tested the web service through a monthlong pilot program aimed at empowering patients to self-schedule. “In a pilot, you put so much hope that it’ll work out [well] so that you can get funding for the rest of the things you want to do,” says the group’s Director of Population Health. “We really tweaked as much as we could on it so that it could have the best outcome. [Our success] came down to the malleability of the product.”

And that intentionality paid off: Within 72 hours, 85 of 120 open mammogram slots were filled by self-scheduled patients. Much of the solution’s success within the pilot program was due to the fact that the custom branding helped build trust with patients and drive usage over time.

Next Steps

Given the pilot program’s success in driving better, more empowered patient experiences — especially during facility staffing shortages — the medical group is currently planning to broaden the solution’s scope even further.

They’re primarily finding ways to develop the solution’s bidirectional communication by expanding it into a platform for secure, real-time patient engagement. This will involve using the solution to:

Survey patients to gather critical data used to improve satisfaction and retention
Assess patients’ risk in order to provide better preventative care
Create and share educational multimedia packages
Offer communications in different languages and written characters to provide more equitable care

Expanding the solution to improve the patient experience means relying on Elxo’s responsiveness, value, and ability to fully customize the software. With this foundation, the medical group is ready to turn the scheduling tool into a full-scale holistic care management solution.

Benefits