Ballad Health will soon be introducing a new two-way text notification system for patients called “Hello World,” available through Epic, that will allow them to more easily manage their own healthcare. This system will also save time for both clinics and patients.
We are targeting Monday, Aug. 28, to bring this functionality live. This date may flex slightly due to approval required from the three major carriers.
How does it work?
As a patient, once you’ve opted in to the new Hello World notification system, you will receive text notifications about appointments and bill pay. The “two-way” aspect of this platform means you can easily respond to these messages with simple prompts, allowing you to confirm or cancel appointments or pay bills, with additional features planned for the future. Once opted in, you can easily opt out at any time.
Resources and info
We’ve got more information about this project on the Ballad Health intranet on the ShareIT site:
What are the benefits?
The Hello World two-way text notification will make it easier and more convenient to manage appointments and bills, it will offer additional features and it will save our patient access teams time on the phone handling appointment confirmations and cancellations.
It will also help to minimize appointment no-shows by making it easier for patients to remember upcoming appointments and making it easier for them to cancel appointments. Two-way text notifications have been shown to reduce no-shows at facilities by up to 50%.
This is part of Ballad Health’s “Epic First” philosophy of taking advantage of everything our Epic electronic medical record system has to offer. By using Epic software wherever possible, we make the most of our investment in Epic, allow our IT department to operate more efficiently for our team members and improve the interactive and collaborative capabilities of our software.
How will this affect me as a team member?
This change will have minimal impact on team member workflows.
- Patient access team members will be asked to tell patients about the text notifications and help them opt in.
- Team members will be provided with materials and training information that will assist them in discussing this feature with patients and ensure they are equipped to register anyone who is interested.
- Clinicians will also be provided with information about two-way texting so they can discuss it with patients.
Look forward to more information through Ballad Health News and the Ballad Teams app about this exciting new change, the benefits it will offer and how you can opt in!
Click here to visit the Hello World page on our ShareIT site of the Ballad Health intranet.
