Leverage the Mobile Channel to Keep Staff & Patients Safe

With the high prevalence of the rapidly transmissible COVID-19, mobile communication is healthcare’s rising star to support the health and safety of patients and healthcare workers on the frontlines. Mobile outreach offers trusted communication for staff, providers and patients, guiding each towards better knowledge, attitude and practices.

Adventist Health (AH) White Memorial, a 350 bed nonprofit teaching hospital in East Los Angeles and 2019 recipient of the prestigious Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, rapidly adopted an innovative approach to safety during the pandemic. The hospital leveraged SMS-based engagement to impact both patients as well as employees who came into contact with COVID-19 positive or suspected patients.

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been great to work with access.mobile. They were responsive and creative as we sought solutions to adapt to the stresses imposed on our frontline health workers and patients due to COVID. Text messaging has been a very important tool for remote communication for both our diverse patient populations in East LA as well as for our staff.” - Mara Bryant, Operations Executive, AH White Memorial

To monitor symptoms of staff who were potentially exposed to COVID-19, AH White Memorial used an automated texting campaign for 14-days from potential exposure. Prior to deploying the SMS-based strategy, AH White Memorial’s Employee Health Department had to call each staff member under investigation. Soon, they were spending critical hours each day tracking and monitoring staff. This consumed critical resources at a time when capacity was stretched. Familiar with the value and ease of use of text messaging, AH White Memorial soon realized that they could leverage automated daily text messages for the 14-day monitoring period. In doing so, there was a 70% reduction in call volume and staff resources.

Adventist Health White Memorial was able to reduce call volume and time spent by 70% through an automated staff text messaging campaign.

AH White Memorial also deployed SMS-based engagement to provide accessible, timely COVID-19 information to high risk populations including elderly, multicultural, and those with chronic conditions. For the first two months, patients received up to three messages a week about COVID-19 prevention, symptom checking, local resources, care navigation and service changes. Patients welcomed the meaningful, simple communication. Engagement with messages were very high with opt-out rates below 1% (industry standard 3%) and click throughs (links to additional digital content) above 10% on many messages. The ability to easily connect with patients has allowed AH White Memorial to inform and support the community during the pandemic