Desert Oasis Healthcare provides medical and health care services to communities in California’s Coachella Valley, as well as in Riverside and San Bernardino. The group serves more than 60,000 patients.
PROBLEM
Desert Oasis is facing a challenge that many healthcare organizations face: getting patients to follow their care plans. For clinicians, simply telling patients what they need them to do and how to behave is not enough.
“There are countless reasons why many patients do not adhere to their care plan: some do not fully understand their diagnosis, some do not want to believe they have the disease, others have health problems behavioral health or simply opt out,” said Brian Hodgkins, executive vice president of clinical operations and ACO Legacy Provider Network at Desert Oasis Healthcare. He has a doctorate in pharmacy.
“It was clear that we needed an innovative turnkey solution to effectively connect with hard-to-reach patients and ensure they adhere to their care plans, which was essential,” he added. to our goal of cost-effectively promoting public health.”
Desert Oasis has made some progress on this issue, but has yet to find an answer. On a related note, half of their 60,000 patients are seniors without much disposable income.
“As a result, many of our patients are difficult to reach and non-compliant with their medications or care plans, often leading to costly care interventions,” Hodgkins explains. “Over the long term, routinely providing such care will put pressure on our organization and may hinder our ability to provide quality care to all of our patients.” .
“I would say that my team at Desert Oasis is in the business of testing technology,” he continued. “I can’t tell you how many technology, AI, and remote patient monitoring companies have approached us. One of the main challenges in my current job is finding the technology that we can be leveraged to truly improve the patient and provider experience, while reducing the cost and burden of care.”
PROPOSE
Health IT vendor Wellth presented data to Desert Oasis demonstrating the real-world effectiveness of its technology and making a convincing case that patients are enabled on the platform, Hodgkins said. Their platform will show improved medication and care plan adherence rates, leading to reduced inpatient and emergency room utilization.
“The fundamentals of their approach – leveraging behavioral science and proprietary technology to motivate hard-to-reach members on a daily basis and create lasting engagement – are compelling,” he continued. leads for us as a way to help our members while improving outcomes and reducing costs.” . “We were extremely impressed with their data and think their proposal is consistent with our approach of trying to keep as many patients out of the hospital as possible.
“The technology leverages principles like loss aversion to encourage patients to take their medications and complete daily check-ins,” he added. “By providing tangible, recurring incentives to patients, they will be much more motivated to adhere to their medications.”
Hodgkins’ bottom line is this: Even if patients don’t want to adhere to their care plan, if Desert Oasis can engage them in such a simple program, they will be more engaged in their care. Take care of yourself and the foundation will be fully functional. valuable.
“Whenever a patient has a medication adherence rate of 80% or higher, their life improves significantly and we don’t have to worry about disease progression or complications,” he noted. debilitating effects”.
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
Whether it was dealing with patients who needed blood sugar levels monitored, had behavioral issues or arrived at the emergency room in a heartbeat, every time Desert Oasis assigned a problem to Wellth, the team solved it, Hodgkins reported. decided.
“The process of working together was extremely simple,” he said. “We are simply providing Wellth with a secure way to provide our disease register – a database of hard-to-reach patients with all their associated conditions – and patient numbers that we wanted to enroll in the program Then they did all the heavy lifting, including patient outreach and activation on the provider’s mobile app.
“The technology also fits seamlessly into our existing systems and workflows,” he continued. “There is no need for API integration or additional software. Our physicians can access case types for patients, which allows them to quickly identify who uses the technology and examine their experiences.” Surname.”
If the technology shows up in a patient’s type of case, doctors will know immediately what condition the platform is helping to treat, which patients are most likely to adhere to and take their medications, and what types of outcomes they expect. can expect to receive from their participation.
“Additionally, whenever a patient is non-compliant, the technology alerts us so we can proactively reach out to the patient and ensure they get back on track,” Hodgkins notes.
“Whenever you move a segment of your healthcare delivery model to a contracted partner, you want to make sure you are getting accurate information from them,” he added. in a timely manner and your brand and mission are communicated consistently.” “Wellth’s communication with us is direct, measured and regular, so we’re always on the same page.”
Since Desert Oasis clinicians cannot be home with patients 24 hours a day, this technology is an extension of the eyes and ears of clinicians into the community and it has proven to be extremely helpful.
“We are now working to find new ways to roll it out to other patient groups and expand the potential impact,” Hodgkins explains. “Technology has truly been a gift to us and in return we are delighted to be able to give this technology to our patients. The platform has performed better than we expected. “
RESULT
That foundation has helped Desert Oasis close some important gaps in quality of care.
“Since 2022, we have enrolled 3,000 hard-to-reach patients – primarily seniors with multiple chronic conditions – into our program,” Hodgkins reports. “To qualify for activation on the platform, our patients must have extremely poor medication adherence rates, around 40% to 50%. Many of our patients have adherence rates in that range now have to take medication up to 90% of the time since they’ve been on the platform.
“Of the 3,000 members we signed up, we saw a 91% daily engagement rate, a 91% retention rate, a 29% decrease in inpatient utilization, Emergency room utilization decreased by 24% and emergency room utilization rates were 5% and 6%. % improvement in antidepressant and RAS medication adherence, respectively,” he continued.
Healthcare organizations can achieve these results because the platform’s daily check-in process is extremely simple and beneficial to patients, he added.
“Anecdotally, I’ve had patients call me personally to tell me how much they enjoy using it and how proud they are of their daily check-in streak,” he says.
“The platform drives daily care motivation through a process where patients can benefit from both the motivation and the habits they develop,” he continued. “Additionally, our patients love using it and see it as a real benefit, especially since its rewards go directly towards helping our patients buy groceries, pay expenses shipping and monthly bill payments.”
The reduction in emergency room and inpatient use demonstrates the effectiveness of technology in promoting preventative care, he added.
“Through their platform, patients are taking their medications much more frequently, improving their overall health and changing the course of their condition for the better,” he said. “This overall improvement in health is leading to fewer emergency room visits and hospitalizations.”
ADVICE TO OTHERS
If a healthcare organization wants to improve the health of its population, investing in effective patient engagement technology is a no-brainer, Hodgkins said.
“There are very few partnerships that can deliver such strong returns on both costs and patient health outcomes,” he continued. “Our investment in patient engagement technology is one of five innovative and trusted partnerships that have truly helped us deliver on our mission to improve people’s health.
He added: “Going forward, healthcare providers will face even greater pressure to deliver better patient experiences and health outcomes, and a significant “A significant portion of that success will depend on the smart use of trusted patient engagement technology and partnerships.”
The profits also clearly justify the costs for suppliers, he said.
“You just need to consider what will ultimately cost your organization more: a comprehensive patient engagement program or providing regular inpatient and emergency room care,” he observes. , long-term for a large aging population.”
“For us, the average emergency room visit costs $3,000,” he said. “70% of those patients required hospitalization, which ended up costing us about $18,000 per admission. Out of a patient population of 3,000, an organization only needed to prevent about 30 emergency room visits to pay for the entire patient engagement model. Our investment in patient engagement technology has delivered approximately 4x ROI.”
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