To Your Health: Keeping patients informed during pandemic

A few weeks ago, we discussed the role of diagnostics and laboratory medicine professionals in health care during the pandemic.

The critical, yet seldom recognized, group was instrumental in developing, performing, and analyzing COVID-19 tests for our community and then continually expanding their ability to do so to accommodate growing numbers of cases.

Today, I’d like to take some time to recognize another group that has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to reach patients in a time of uncertainty and continual change.

At my institution, the clinical access management team’s primary tool is a patient contact center. These folks make and receive phone calls for patients across the entire Geisinger system. Much of what they do is related to scheduling appointments for patients, but a good portion of their job is relaying test results and communicating with providers to make care decisions, like if medication needs to be adjusted or if a patient needs to be seen for a condition.

When the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19 infection, reached our communities, the access management team took on a multitude of different roles.

My team, as did most health systems, followed guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Pennsylvania Department of Health, to delay non-urgent procedures and visits as a safety precaution. Access management had to support that process by notifying patients of postponements.

As pandemic activity waned, and we needed to resume those procedures and visits, it was again the access management team that hustled to reach out to those patients to schedule.

Early on in the pandemic, everyone had questions about COVID-19, ranging from how to exercise safety precautions to what to do if you suspected you had symptoms. Geisinger established a hotline for patients to get in touch with nurses who could help them answer questions or address concerns.

Call volumes were staggering to begin with, but once testing, and eventually vaccination, began to ramp up, those working the hotline needed more support to deal with high demand and constant changes in state and federal guidance. In swooped the access management team.

They helped with outbound calls to deliver test results, schedule vaccines, and get patients necessary treatment like monoclonal antibodies.

The team also assisted in the development of patient self-service channels such as automated call-in test results and self-scheduling testing and vaccine appointments through MyGeisinger, Geisinger’s webbased patient portal. Through March of this year, 45 percent of all first-dose vaccine appointments were scheduled through this system.

And not to be overlooked is how the access management team supported a shift to telemedicine, which became a crucial method of providing care when many were hesitant or unable to visit clinics and hospitals. Thousands of physicians adopted telemedicine, and the patient contact center not only supported that infrastructure but also played a role in driving patients to that option when it was medically appropriate.

What was expected to take years in a move toward more telehealth consultation took only weeks, and the access management team was a big part of expediting that process.

So, while we realize that all evolution and growth related to COVID-19 has been imperfect and that delays and inconveniences have been synonymous with the pandemic, it’s important that we recognize those who made it their business to ease that burden.

Professionals in clinical access management have rallied to support every pivot and adaptation health care has confronted since March of last year, and for that, we thank them.