Provider Data Management: The Foundation for a Supercharged Marketing Strategy

0:00

Welcome to today's webinar, Provider Data Management, the foundation for a supercharged marketing strategy.

0:07

I'm Jane Weber Brubaker, Executive Editor of Plain English Healthcare, and I'll be your host for today's presentation, sponsored by Loyal.

0:14

So why provider data management?

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It's because everybody benefits when your provider and location data are under control.

0:21

And that includes patients and providers, as well as your finance department.

0:25

Today we'll hear how Summit Health brought it all together in one single source of truth It made it easier for patients to find and access the right care.

0:34

Before I turn it over to our presenters, just a few housekeeping details.

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Today's presentation will be about 50 minutes, followed by an audience Q &A.

0:42

We'll hold your questions until the end, but feel free to submit them anytime.

0:45

The session is being recorded, and in a couple days you'll receive an email with a link to view it on our website, eHealthCareStrategy.com.

0:54

And now I'd like to briefly introduce our panelists, and you can read their full bios on our website.

0:59

Rachelle Montano is Vice President of Clinical Strategy at Loyal.

1:03

And Stephanie Scotto is Senior Manager of Web Operations at Summit Health, which is part of Village MD.

1:08

And now I'll turn it over to Rachelle.

1:10

Rachelle, please go ahead.

1:13

Great, thank you.

1:14

Thank you, Jane.

1:15

Thank you, all the entire team at eHealth Strategy and Trends.

1:18

We're really excited for this opportunity to do this webinar today.

1:24

When it comes to provider data management, it's really probably not the most exciting or sizzling topic or part of your work, but as digital healthcare marketers, we know that it is still such an important backbone foundation of all the work that we do and without having a solid data management strategy and solution, you really cannot be effective in all the marketing efforts that you do.

1:49

And so I was really thrilled that Stephanie and wanted to, was able to share with us today, agreed to share with us today the work that she's doing, that they've been doing with Summit.

2:01

So without further ado, we'll get into that a little bit.

2:05

But I guess before we do, I'll tell you a little bit about myself, my background and Loyal, if you're not familiar with us.

2:13

So I have been working in the digital healthcare space for a little over 20 years.

2:18

I started prior to that, I worked as a clinical dietitian and realized that really my passion was in marketing and digital marketing in particular.

2:31

So I had the opportunity in the early 2000s of working with many hospital and health systems in crafting what was then their brand new digital strategy and digital plans.

2:43

And so really just enjoyed being a part with this industry ever since then.

2:48

About five years ago, Loyal came to me and asked, I was working as a consultant and Loyal came and asked if I would help build what is now the clinical taxonomy, which is a key component of the data management solution that Loyal offers.

3:04

I really liked what they were doing so much.

3:06

I loved the approach that they were taking to really making a difference in this space.

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So I decided then to join them full-time.

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And so since then, for the last five years or so, I've been working with loyal full-time as a VP of clinical strategy.

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Loyal focuses solely on healthcare providers and building software solutions that help the health system alleviate friction and build loyal relationships with the patients and providers.

3:31

If you want to learn more about what we do, I encourage you to go look at our website, contact us, and we'll be happy to talk to you and answer any questions you might have.

3:41

Now, let Steph introduce herself.

3:42

Oops.

3:45

Hi, everyone.

3:46

My name is Stephanie Scato.

3:47

I am the Senior Manager of Web Operations at VillageMD slash Summit Health slash CityMD.

3:54

So a little over a year ago, VillageMD acquired Summit Health and CityMD by way of Walgreens.

4:02

It was a very large acquisition.

4:05

Prior to that, Summit Health evolved into Summit Health and CityMD by way of Summit Medical Group, which is one of the oldest medical groups in Northern New Jersey.

4:15

So now we're comprised of Village MD, Summit Health, and City MD, which surpasses several medical groups, urgent care, specialties, over 92 specialties across the country in 26 markets.

4:30

So I've been here for about six and a half years with the company and my original start when I started working after college was in e-commerce fashion.

4:41

And I worked there for about 11 to 12 years.

4:43

Once I made the shift to this industry, I liked it so much and went back and got my master's in health administration because it just piqued my interest so much and I really wanted to learn more about it.

4:55

I've always been on the web team at Summit Health and acquired as initially was just the Summit Health website.

5:01

And then we acquired the CityMD website and secondarily the VillageMD website.

5:07

So three websites under our belt, but the one in focus today is Summit Health, being that we have a very robust provider data management platform there.

5:19

Thanks, Steph.

5:20

So today what we wanted to do is we thought we'd kind of break up this webinar into three major parts.

5:27

First, we wanted to talk just in general about the state of healthcare and digital search, share some stats with you, and then talk about why provider data management is so important and what it comprises, and then really get into the heart of it and talk about some of its experience and then close with some final thoughts.

5:49

So when it comes to healthcare and digital search, I know this might be surprising to some of you, but Google is where it's at.

5:57

You know, everybody goes, I don't know how, you know, people get through their day without going to Google, right?

6:04

Google or going to a search engine, primarily Google.

6:08

I mentioned early, you know, just a couple seconds ago that we were going to, we are going to have a lot of stats in this presentation.

6:14

We tried to source all of them.

6:16

So this slide in particular shares a lot of just general statistics about the dominance of Google when it comes to search.

6:26

But you know, all of us know that, you know, we as people consumers go to search engines for everything.

6:36

we go to a search engine to figure out what to eat, where to eat, where to sleep, what to wear, how to parent, you know, and that includes how to find a doctor or where to go for care.

6:47

And so, you know, it's so important to make sure that everything that we do and the data that's feeding Google and other search engines is accurate and accessible for the consumers as they're I thought this was an interesting slide and more statistics to pull in.

7:18

E-Marketer put out a research study recently.

7:24

80% of consumers use a search engine to seek information and self-diagnose about what their health concerns.

7:31

80% of people, that's a lot of people that are going using search engines to self-diagnose.

7:36

So not just looking for a provider, but understand what it is that they have.

7:40

So, you know, you can look at these numbers and see that obviously you could select more than one thing because you started the search engine and more and more people are getting their final answer at that search engine and doing a zero click, you know, as Google is evolving and the search experience is evolving.

7:56

But in general, people are going to two or three sources in order to get the answers to the information that they're looking for when it comes to their healthcare.

8:05

And what's interesting to me beyond the 80% of people that are self-diagnosing is that they're then going to the national sites like WebMD, et cetera.

8:18

But then if you look at that third line, the health system and then the fifth line, the physician websites, combine those, that's over 30% of people that are coming to your websites as digital healthcare marketers to get information about their health concerns.

8:37

And so understand that this is your opportunity as digital marketers to really tee up your physicians and your services and convert them to appointments.

8:46

And those are, again, as marketers, the things that we're trying to do is to get people to use our services.

8:52

And so this huge audience, captive audience, is your opportunity to build loyalty, convert them to using your services.

9:00

And so you want to make sure that the information that they're finding is going to be easy for them as they're seeking it.

9:09

Another great slide that I thought we would use is AHA Media Group is the leader in this vendor in this space.

9:17

And they recently conducted some research that they will be releasing early next month, early October on their blog.

9:27

But I was able to get a sneak peek of some of their research findings.

9:31

And one of the things that I thought was interesting and exciting, and they've got lots of other great things, so I encourage you to look at it when it comes out in October.

9:40

But in their survey of over 500 people, they asked, where do you go to find a provider?

9:47

And this could be online or offline sources.

9:50

You can see they ask a family or friend, insurance, et cetera.

9:54

And the number one response that they received was the hospital website.

10:00

So again, it just goes to show how important having accurate and comprehensive information about your providers on your is for and it's helping people make decisions about where they're going for their care.

10:14

The other important thing I wanted to make a note I want to make about this slide.

10:18

And again, you'll see the full study when comes out, but this was, they, AHA Media Group did this research in 2018, so four or five, five, six years ago, and they asked the same question, and then the percent of people that answered hospital website was less than seven percent, so it goes to show how important that the hospital website, it's growing, it's only growing, so in the last four or five years, it's gone from 7% to 26% of the people that respond, that that is the place that they go to find their providers.

10:56

So that's a huge opportunity again, for us as digital marketers to make sure that what we're presenting is meeting the needs of those consumers who are looking for it.

11:11

So thinking that way and thinking through from a marketer true traditional product marketing perspective, your doctors, your providers, is your physicians are your product that you're promoting.

11:24

The appointments that they're serving and offering are the inventory.

11:29

So that's how much of your product do you have to offer to the market?

11:34

And so making sure that you have clear, accurate information about your products, about your physicians, is what's going to create a good customer experience because that's what people are shopping for.

11:48

So without that, all of your marketing efforts and strategies are set up for failure.

11:54

If you don't have the right phone number, the photos that people are looking for, the bios, all the information that is what a consumer, a person needs to engage with you to buy your product, your doctor making an appointment with your doctor, you're going to fail.

12:13

And so that's why data management is so important as that foundational component.

12:18

Again, it's not the fun part of our job making the campaigns and doing all that.

12:22

That's the fun part of the digital marketing.

12:24

But you have to have that foundation of the data layer, the data management layer, and the accurate information in order for those strategies and campaigns to be a success.

12:35

So, to that point, oops, when doing the research for this, for this presentation, we found this article and this article was focused on a credentialing, primarily focused on credentialing and data management when it came to data management and the importance in making sure that you have full comprehensive information and accurate information about your doctors for that, for they said that they estimated that every provider per day contributes $9 ,000 on average to the hospital.

13:15

So again, if you think about it, as from a marketing perspective, our job is to invest in strategies that will promote the product that's gonna bring $9 ,000 per day to our business.

13:27

And so again, that information has to be accurate and complete because if it's not, That is damaging the bottom line, the business bottom line every single day that we don't have accurate information. So important.

13:42

Having said that how important it is, it's tough because that data is not data that we control, it's not data that we have full visibility into.

13:56

The challenge of pulling that all into one place that we can make sure that we can have access to complete and correct accurate information is so important.

14:11

And that's where the key to this lies.

14:16

So, you know, the data sources, we've got multiple disparate data sources, some of the information's in our content management system, bios, photos, perhaps, some is in credentialing, some is in the EHR, appointments availability.

14:28

And so we have to be able to access and aggregate all of that information in order to serve it up for our marketing strategies.

14:38

The doctors themselves move around, you know, you've got some doctors who are splitters that spend half their time with your organization and half the time with your competitors or other organizations and or some that are employed, some of that are affiliated.

14:51

So you have to make sure that you keep a pulse on that and keep all of that information up to date.

14:55

There's a statistic in the healthcare business today that 20 to 30% of physicians update their employment every year.

15:04

So 20 to 30% of doctors are changing.

15:07

And so that's, you know, a quarter to a third of your information that gets changed about every all of your products.

15:12

That's a lot to stay on top of.

15:18

Location, change, buy, sell, services, businesses, suites change, addresses change, phone numbers change, names change, all of that happens on a daily basis.

15:32

And we have to make sure to keeping that up, keeping it up to date on all of that is so important for this and challenging and creates a challenge for us.

15:40

And then, you know, we're dealing with technology.

15:42

So we're dealing with many times multiple EHRs within your organization.

15:47

You're thinking about even the external systems that you have to work with, Google, Bing, Apple, they all have different category, proprietary category listings, ways that they're looking at your data, what's important to them.

16:02

So you have to make sure that you're working well with other technologies as well.

16:06

So there's a lot of components to this data management thing that makes it tough for us to control or to get correct.

16:19

But it is so important.

16:22

So just wanted to dig into and then define, now that we've talked about why it's so important, let's talk about what it is and what it, especially when it comes to marketing and what we can do in order to accomplish making sure that we have a solid foundation.

16:45

So when I went to Google and I looked up what is provider data management, I got an answer.

16:54

And again, a lot of this is related to a credentialing system.

17:03

But essentially, Provider Data Management is a centralized system for managing and organizing provider and location data across healthcare organizations.

17:11

It ensures reliable access to accurate information for both administrative and operational purposes, enhancing network management, claims processing, credentialing, referrals, and directory services.

17:23

It also enables healthcare organizations to more effectively promote their services to consumers and patients in need of care.

17:31

So that, and then that overall, then you're influencing the health of your communities you serve and helping to achieve your business goals.

17:38

So that is really the linchpin of what provider data management is.

17:46

Again, another quote that I saw in a healthcare executive magazine was that provider data management is really the linchpin that keeps the wheels on the healthcare going.

17:58

without accurate information, people can't make a placement, claims can't get processed.

18:04

It has to be a solid strategy in place for your organization.

18:10

So we thought we'd just think through kind of breaking into three buckets, the benefits of provided data management.

18:18

So improving the patient care experience, improving the experience for the providers that are in your organization, as well as contributing to cost savings, cost savings in the bottom line for your organization.

18:39

So for the care experience, I think it goes, we've kind of touched on this, but it goes without saying that being able to call the number of the right doctor and actually know what appointments are available is going to create a better care experience for your patients that you serve.

19:01

From the provider's perspective, making sure that they are being presented in a way that they will get the right patients in the door and so they will get not only a full appointment schedule, so they will be able to be busy all day, but also get the right patients within the door and that helps their satisfaction as well.

19:25

And then we talked already throughout some stats about how important it is from the dollar's perspective, but it also helps reduce billing errors and can save the organization money in the end.

19:40

So very important all the way around.

19:47

We thought that we'd talk a little bit about loyal's point of view when it comes to data provider data management, because a lot of what, when you look at the literature and you look at the research and you look at information, it focuses a lot on the providers, which is important.

20:04

And of course, we just talked about there's a product, that's what you, the doctors are, you know, the imperative part.

20:10

But we believe at Loyal that it's really more than the providers that you have to include in your data management strategy, information about the care locations and where people go to have those appointments.

20:24

Um, so, you know, providers are the product, but they can't exist without the locations.

20:29

And so you have to have accurate information about the locations as well.

20:33

And the relationship between those two is so imperative.

20:37

And then additionally, we layer in kind of a third component into our data manage, what we believe is a comprehensive, provided data management strategy.

20:46

And that's what's here is clinical taxonomy.

20:48

And really, that's the glue that's connecting everything together.

20:52

And clinical taxonomy, I do think, is a little bit maybe somewhat of a misnomer because as a clinician myself, it's not necessarily always the clinical words that we're trying to include in that, but essentially what we're referencing and referring to when we say that are the words and taxonomy that people are using when they're seeking care.

21:15

Earlier I showed that 80% of people use search engines to self-diagnose.

21:20

you know, that what that means really is that people don't necessarily search for you by the name of your doctor by the or your by your providers.

21:29

They have a health concern, they go to Google to learn more.

21:33

And then that search leads them down a path that's going to connect them to your health system.

21:38

And you as a digital marketers, within the health system, you're doing your job well by showcasing your products, your physicians, and leading them down the path to make an appointment and visit your location.

21:52

So really the data management strategy and solution has to include all three of these, your provider information, your location information, and the clinical taxonomy in order to really fully meet the needs of all of your marketing strategies that you do.

22:10

Ooh, that slide looks great.

22:13

Last minute, I decided to make this a build slide and I see I skipped part of it because it was a lot of information on the same slide.

22:20

So, but if you decide to tackle data or when you tackle data management, you might be asking yourself where to start.

22:28

So we thought we'd just kind of step through, I think it's eight step process and just kind of walk you through this.

22:33

And this is really designed to tee up where Stephanie is gonna come in and talk about exactly how they walked through this process and the results that they got from it.

22:42

And so essentially, if you're going to tackle this, you really have, just like any major project, you have to have a focused planning and implementation process in order to ensure that it's successful.

22:53

So you start with understanding your current state, understanding where you are and where you want to be, define your goals clearly and identify what are your desired outcomes, perform a gap analysis, understand and articulate clearly where your gaps are, from where you are and where you want to be.

23:15

Doing this too will help you not only chart out that path, but it will also give you points to assess your success, your results and success once you implement, when you can look back and say, oh, this was the gaps that we identified as priorities.

23:31

This is, and now look where we are, how far we've come.

23:35

So that's an important step.

23:37

Prioritizing your investment and resources, creating a budget, understanding where the budget's gonna come from, who's gonna benefit within the organization.

23:47

So going through that step is important.

23:50

And then developing your plan, setting clear expectations, making sure that you have identified the timeline, the resources.

23:59

Lots of time, this is where an RFP might be developed.

24:02

You might engage your project management office to help you go through the process to selecting a data management technology that can help you, which is really the next step.

24:14

So you go through that step of selecting the data management solution because you've already, you know what it is that you want it to achieve for you, it really helps make this process a lot easier.

24:28

One note I wanna make is that your data management solution is not the same as content management solution.

24:37

Your CMS system typically will focus on largely unstructured data, You know, help organize your large amounts of data that are information content and can be different types and that kind of thing.

24:56

Whereas a data management technology or solution is more structured that organizes discrete information and with discrete fields and discrete data points.

25:09

and that can be used to serve up into your content management solution as well as other areas.

25:15

And so it's kind of two different goals before the two.

25:18

So I do want to encourage people not to think of their content management system as the answer to their data management solutions.

25:25

These are kind of two different things that you need in order to be successful.

25:32

Once you've identified your data management solution, then you have to implement.

25:37

And remember, this doesn't happen overnight, it does take time, especially if this is new to you within a marketing organization.

25:46

Understanding all the data sources that you need, how they're going to integrate, that part can get kind of pretty technical, but it's so important.

25:58

And you need to review all of it.

26:01

You could also at this point go through and enhance data so you might identify the new data source that you need.

26:08

So you've got to go out and find and collect information that is important from all of the data sources from potentially all of your providers or all of your locations during this step.

26:19

Doing a full taxonomy review, the clinical taxonomy, integrating the consumer terms with the information about your providers and locations could be part of this step.

26:28

And so this is a step that can, depending on what you want when this says build the house, like, do you want a shack or do you want a mansion?

26:36

and how much effort are you willing to put into implementing this will determine what you're going to get out of it for sure.

26:46

And with that, having, you know, the data management is more than just a technology.

26:52

It also requires a governance structure.

26:55

So you have to plan for that.

26:57

You have to spell out who is responsible for what.

27:00

Who do you go to with requests when a doctor comes in and wants to do ask for a new specialty or a new condition or a new phone number. How does that process and approval go through?

27:12

What is the governance structure for that? It's so important.

27:16

And then this is a living breathing thing.

27:19

We talked about already how much it changes, doctors change, locations change, the ongoing maintenance and optimization doesn't stop.

27:27

And so you have to make sure that you are accounting for that in your plan.

27:35

And so with that background and setup, I'm gonna now turn to Steph and ask her to share a little bit more about the experience that she's had in working with Summit in going through this process.

27:59

So Steph, do you wanna tell us a little bit more about Summit Health?

28:06

So for the basis of this, we're using Summit Health as our example, which is the larger of the three websites in terms of provider data management.

28:16

We have, including myself, 14 members, two of which primarily work within Drupal, which is our content management system that Rochelle mentioned before when she was speaking about the difference between a data management system versus a content management system.

28:31

Drupal is our chosen content management system.

28:34

Within that system, all of our data is housed, and of that is our 1 ,600 providers and then some.

28:44

We are, as I mentioned in the beginning, we are one of the largest multi-specialty doctor groups within Northern New Jersey, and we've since expanded two parts of New York and Connecticut, and then coupling in our Village MD partners, which is country-wide.

29:02

We needed a way for our providers and our locations and all of the data that is surrounding all of them to be displayed, portrayed, and basically searchable on our website in a smart way, in an accessible way, in a way that is patient friendly and not so web savvy.

29:22

So anybody could go on and use a search term of their liking and get the desired results.

29:29

So we partnered with Loyal to do this and they shared what their solution was, which is care search.

29:36

And we worked with them diligently for upwards of a year to really define each and every piece of what we wanted in a search solution, what was important to us as the organization and what was important to our patients, knowing what we knew so far about their search strategies, the way they approached looking for a care facility, a specific practice provider based on a specialty or a location or any other key search term.

30:08

And we worked with them across taxonomy levels and within different fields that they had available to us.

30:16

And we were also able to work with them from the perspective of this is a nice to have and this is a need to have.

30:23

And they worked with us throughout every step of the way from this perspective, knowing that each and every client that they have would have nuances, give or take the the importance of certain things within their structure.

30:34

So within that search solution, we were able to define each and every field that was important to us that already not only pre existed in Drupal, but ones that were on the horizon for us that we wanted in a future state.

30:47

And they helped us get to that point as well. Thanks, Stefan.

30:52

I know we'll go deeper into some of that process. But I think this next slide, yeah, just talks about some of the goals of your organization.

31:01

If you want to talk a little bit about how the system approached it, and what were priorities for them when you're making a decision about engaging in a data management solution?

31:12

We knew that a data management solution initially when we had done a, we had done a recent website redesign in December of 2020 and we were, you know, it was in our mindset that we knew we needed a, we needed a search solution to help us.

31:33

Currently we had Drupal and to piggyback on what Rochelle said earlier, your content management system is not a data management solution.

31:40

it's a nice thing to have.

31:42

And they did have some innate search capabilities, but not to the caliber that we were looking to have. And we wanted something robust.

31:51

We wanted something to be specific, but also available to take broad terms and give accurate curated search results.

32:01

So we considered the technology that we had, the flexibility of it.

32:06

Drupal um, is more of a developer friendly content management system.

32:10

So it was, it's able to be nimble and manipulated.

32:14

And, you know, we worked with our development team in order to build out really specific fields and, and, um, you know, provider specific areas on, you know, location detail pages and provider detail pages that we knew would be important to us and our patients.

32:28

Um, so we knew that as point one, that it had to be a search solution that would coincide with our Drupal set up and not take us away from that.

32:38

So that was a core system that we knew was going to stay in place.

32:41

In addition to that, we have Google listings at the provider level for Summit Health and at the location level for CityMD.

32:48

And those had been a pain point for us for an extremely long time given the number of providers that we have and the number of CityMD locations that we have.

32:58

Not only in implementing them, acquiring the license, standing up the listings, but also ongoing maintenance, like Rochelle mentioned as the eighth point on her trajectory of provider data management, it's not a once and done, you don't just stand it up and walk away, it requires daily maintenance.

33:16

And so we knew that Google was gonna be a huge part of this and we were also, we were looking for a partner that was able to assist with our listings management as well.

33:25

Which Rochelle also mentioned, everybody goes to Google as their first point when they load up the internet in the morning is the Google's everyone's first touch point.

33:35

You know, amongst other important marketing channels that would contain our campaigns and other and other areas of, you know, organic search and things of that nature.

33:45

You know, we knew that we that our data was in Drupal, but we needed a way to present it out to the world, out to patients within a clean, clear cut provider data management system that was able to appeal to the patient, but also to people within the organization that would be using it as a tool as well.

34:10

And so then again, you kind of dig down in this next slide a little bit about your specific data management goals.

34:15

So from an organization, you talked about your goals were to make sure that you had the data that was accessible and meeting the needs of all of the communities you serve and all of the ways to access it.

34:30

But from a data management perspective, these were the things that you came to the table with as well.

34:34

So you want to talk a little bit about that.

34:36

Sure. So when we came together with loyal, we knew again, knowing that we had Drupal and the ability to import and export data, our data was fairly clean.

34:50

So by clean, I mean that we had, you know, several column headers beyond name and NPI credential and things of that nature, but truly built out data and almost every single field was populated with a piece of relevant information.

35:08

You know, give or take a few percentage of people who didn't want to get a headshot or didn't want to provide certain specifics about about their practice.

35:17

So that was step one of importance for us, knowing that our data initially was clean and that we wouldn't go through this entire build out with loyal and then have a product delivered to us and say, oh, we have to start from point zero again and really start to clean this up now that it's been kind of portrayed in the patient-friendly manner.

35:38

So I would say from that perspective, we hit our goal one by already having a clean amount of data.

35:45

The migration of provider information and the website content was, I wouldn't say seamless, but it also allows you to look at it from a different lens to say, okay, so here's where I could really enhance some of our taxonomic properties for this provider and build upon their provider profile a little bit just by looking at others, look at how they're grouped, looking how it's come into the system.

36:11

Also knowing that patients alike are going to be looking at this along with employees of this of Summit Health, we're using it as a tool on behalf of their providers to refer out on behalf of patients when they're in the office, if we're in a primary care situation and you're like, we need to refer you to a cardiologist and they're doing some of that in-house searching, we wanted to make sure that it was clear enough for someone who physically works here to understand along with a patient doing that.

36:45

So on top of that, we had truly hit the ground running with bookable appointments online, which is something that was new to us, given the amount of location acquisitions and provider acquisitions that we'd had in the past and people coming in with different forms of appointment bookings that we needed to kind of correlate into Summit's own.

37:10

So we have a bevy of ways to book appointment online within Summit. It's not clear cut. It's not one system.

37:16

We really tried to run loyal through the gamut with five or six different ways that we wanted to present the ability to book an appointment. We have Click to Call. We have Sock Doc. We have two different Athena table spaces.

37:30

We have Epic.

37:32

We have a bevy of options and we didn't make it easy for them, but we tried our very best and loyal to make it easy for the patient to understand and get to the result that they wanted, which was a fully booked appointment with the provider of their desire.

37:50

So we knew that that was a number one goal for us as well on top of cleaning up the data and making it patient ready.

37:59

Yeah, great.

38:01

That's great.

38:01

Thanks, Steph.

38:02

And I think it's so important to, what I like about this is that it spells out, you talked about how from the organization, what was a priority for the organization, but then also now the next level down for data management itself, it has to meet these requirements in order for us to know that it's a success.

38:15

And so we went into this partnership knowing that and keeping, you know, we were able to move forward by keeping our eyes on these as the goals.

38:23

And I think that's part of what's, you know, helped make it successful, which I think this quote kind of outlines, you know, I think what you were trying to do is that leverage a loyal platform to centralize consumer-facing data into a single source of truth, manage provider and location profiles on the Summit Health website through NLP-based care search and provide up-to-date information across third-party sites.

38:51

Anything you want to add to that or?

38:54

I mean, that truly does sum it up.

38:58

We do consider ourselves the source of truth and several cross-functional groups across the organization consider us the source of truth because we hit all of the touch points regarding locations, providers, provider information.

39:14

So, you know, there could be even credentialing sometimes will come to us and say, oh, what's the location that do you have that's associated with this provider?

39:21

This is what I see, but you might have something different because you get information from several different groups within the organization that in their own little micro journey of information for Summit Health and we've kind of got it all together.

39:37

So oftentimes we are considered the source of truth and it's imperative that the data that we're presenting out and maintaining is accurate and relevant.

39:49

I think that's awesome.

39:49

And it's awesome and it shows the level of commitment to the work that you've done in order to elevate yourself within the organization as seen as that source of truth.

40:00

So that's all for sure.

40:02

Nobody's looking in the yellow pages for information anymore.

40:05

So the website definitely has to move.

40:08

And like you said, with even the care sites themselves are using it to refer patients.

40:14

So that's- They are, they absolutely are.

40:17

So I think what we did is these next few slides, we've got three different points that we thought we'd dig deeper into.

40:23

This first one was just talking a little bit more about the process that you did in unifying the data itself to kind of get your data management solution up and launched.

40:35

And I think after that, we talk a little bit about the clinical taxonomy and then how it aligns bringing it back to your business goals.

40:41

So just thinking about from the beginning, as you started down this endeavor of bringing the data in and looking at it, cleansing it, unifying it, talk to us a little bit more about how that, about that part of the process itself went?

40:59

So the process is definitely not easy.

41:04

It's taxing.

41:04

And you also have to be a little bit agnostic when it comes to the information that you're bringing in.

41:13

And you yourself have to be a detective to understand is this information correct based on what you already know or already have?

41:21

Has it changed and why?

41:22

Should you check that yourself?

41:25

Myself and the one other team member that really helps us maintain and stand up the website and keep it at the high level that it's running at today, we're always second guessing the data that comes in.

41:36

So that's another part of our job as well is to say, okay, this was sent to us, but someone else also sent us this, which kind of negates the other thing that we just received.

41:46

And so we really have to branch out, find the touch points of people that we know who we do our outreach normally to verify information and make sure that the data is unified.

42:00

And if we're getting conflicting information, you know, bring those groups together and say, hey, I think you guys need to chat because at the end of the day, this data is going to go out to the public and we don't want it to be incorrect.

42:12

You know, the fact that people are using it as a referral tool from within and outside the organization is crucial to repeat patients or even acquiring new ones.

42:24

If they're off the bat, get information or they call a wrong number or they expected to call cardiology and they got the gastroenterology office, that's going to be off putting from step one.

42:34

So really unifying the data from that perspective is crucial to the success of the data management platform that you're using.

42:44

And then enhancing our care guidance by using different fields within data management.

42:50

For example, this provider's profile that we have here is like a fully built out profile that's utilizing all of the patient friendly fields, related links to podcasts and articles that they've written, languages that they speak, their expertise from a clinical perspective, their education, a fully built out bio, being able to put hyperlinks within their bio, showcasing locations.

43:16

This is just a really built out example of being able to give a patient all of the information that they want upfront and clear and digestible.

43:29

Perfect, perfect.

43:33

I'm gonna throw a little bit of a curve ball or ask you maybe a tough question.

43:36

Maybe it's not a tough question.

43:37

I don't know, but were there any particular challenges that were harder than you thought that you didn't anticipate when you went into this?

43:48

And if there's anything, how did you overcome it?

43:53

You mean from the integration with Loyal, you're saying?

43:57

Yeah, from the integration, yeah.

43:59

I think that the taxonomy piece of it, because Loyal has such a widespread taxonomy library, and we also came in with a fully built out clinical expertise library of 3 ,000 plus terms, being able to meld those two together and decide what word should trump what word, what word was more layman to more clinical, what is best practice here, what word would we be okay losing, what's a term, what's a condition, what is a, you know, being able to sift through all of those definitions of all of those words and, you know, be willing to say, okay, this person gets this and this person gets that.

44:44

And at the end of the day, is that the right curated search result?

44:48

Is that what someone would be expecting to see if they searched varicose vein?

44:52

So you kind of have to put yourself in both seats.

44:56

You have to put yourself in the consumer seat, but also in the organizational seat and how would you expect someone to ingest the data from that perspective?

45:04

So I think really combining the two taxonomy libraries there was definitely challenging.

45:11

Yeah.

45:12

Yeah.

45:12

I would say so too.

45:13

but I think we came through it.

45:14

I mean, I know that- It's continually evolving.

45:17

So we're always evolving it and making suggestions too.

45:22

Exactly, exactly.

45:23

And so that goes into what we have here, step two, you kind of already talked about it.

45:27

Is there anything else that you wanted to think about on this slide?

45:34

I think from, which is something that we've recently used from a taxonomy perspective is the ability to take a term that someone has associated with their profile for an orthopedic surgeon, for example, and boosts them within their search result.

45:55

So orthopedics is a significantly important specialty for Summit Health and being able to promote them in a smart way was presented to us as a challenge.

46:06

So we went to Loyal, said here's the situation we're trying to solve for.

46:11

We have a bevy of search terms that already exist within our taxonomy that we would like to append specific providers to and boost them within the search result.

46:22

So torn ACL, tennis elbow, trigger finger, things of that nature, append specific providers to those and have them at the forefront of your search results, knowing that they would seen, clicked above the fold in any, you know, in a mobile or desktop experience and then just follow the results and the results were clear.

46:45

We were seeing clicks, we were seeing them pop up so much so that we'll probably do a second round of it and maybe continuing with additional specialties.

46:54

So that was very important for us and a good use of how taxonomy really does does drive the results.

47:02

Excellent, excellent.

47:04

Yeah, and I think I agree.

47:05

I've been really excited and thrilled with the results that you've had in your experience with the boosting.

47:10

And I think you're really excited to continue to extend that for sure.

47:17

All right, the next step that we wanted to dive a little bit deeper in is now that you've kind of gone through the process of implementing the data management and you're moving, you're more, you pass the implementation, moving into the maintenance phase.

47:31

how has it continued to align with your business goals, those original goals that you laid out, how has that experience been for you?

47:42

So it's, we've definitely, it's been a learning experience for sure.

47:46

And we've definitely curtailed some of our processes knowing that the system we have now, like I said, it doesn't require, it doesn't allow you to just shut the book on it and keep going.

47:59

You were constantly in data management and we're constantly in Drupal and we're constantly looking at the two systems and making sure that they're married with one another, that the data is showing in both systems, that it's clear to both parties.

48:14

There is reduced QA, which is great. So we're not constantly checking the live site, checking the backend. Is the data matching?

48:22

When did we update this?

48:25

You know, we've definitely pivoted in some of our process processes.

48:28

And when we do uploads, when we load information, when we push certain profiles live and location pages and things of that nature, to coincide with the import system that we have that runs overnight with all of the data to make sure it's fresh and new and updated.

48:43

We are in Drupal every single day making updates, so it's imperative that the import system that runs overnight and keeps the data clean is running at its optimum position.

48:59

And like I said, we're using all of the resources that we have at the best of our ability, knowing that all of our processes are almost 100% manual and that we're loading all of that.

49:12

We have nothing dynamic flowing into Drupal.

49:14

So all of the onus is on us to keep the data updated to make sure that we're hitting those goals.

49:20

And I think one of the things that you mentioned when we've chatted about this before is about just the number of hours that were spent previously in keeping profiles up to date versus now that it's just really significantly decreased.

49:35

It has.

49:36

It has.

49:36

I mean, myself and my colleague on my team that we primarily do this, we were spending secondary amount of hours checking our work post-goal live or even pre-goal live to make sure everything was lined up, whereas now the process runs.

49:53

We know that it's going to be good.

49:55

Maybe we pass an eyeball past it just to make sure that it's there, but we're not spending a significant amount of time clicking in, making sure that it's showing the way we want it to.

50:04

We're confident in the process, and we're confident that the data is going to come over in a clean and understanding way.

50:11

But on the flip side, if there is something that goes awry, there's a great follow-up of team members to help us work through the issue and rectify it as quickly as possible.

50:22

Cool.

50:24

All right, in the interest of time, I'm gonna go ahead and move then on to closing thought because I do know I wanna give other people a chance to ask questions because I know we're just about to the end, top of the hour.

50:37

Just a couple of points that we wanted to make in closing is that hopefully we've made our point in this presentation in that data management is imperative as the foundation of your marketing strategy and it's not going away and we encourage you don't wait if you haven't started the path of a data management solution, do it.

50:57

And we do think that it is again, it's your CMS is not your data management solution.

51:04

So I know that for sure in making sure that you engage multiple departments, stakeholders, and clinical taxonomy is imperative and it's going to be using that and incorporating that into your data management strategy is going to be help make you stand out.

51:23

You have to have governance that's imperative and then you have to plan for ongoing maintenance.

51:28

Those were what the our final points that we wanted to make and now I'm going to open it up to questions and turn it back over to Jane.

51:36

Well, thank you Stephanie and Michelle. That was a really interesting presentation.

51:43

It just sounds like there's so many, it would be impossible to do this manually, it sounds like. And the automation that you have and the time savings.

51:51

I know that people talk about doing these things in spreadsheets and I just can't even imagine having to do that.

51:56

And just the fact that you have your CMS and your data management kind of, it's like a on it, marriage.

52:07

So let's jump into the questions and let me see.

52:13

We have Stephanie, question about the challenges of doing this, because it sounds like it's a heavy lift.

52:21

But what challenges did you face during data integration and how did you overcome them?

52:28

So we oftentimes would take a step back, find out where the issue was, and work backwards and to see where the wrench broke apart.

52:42

So we were like, if there was something wrong in the data, we were missing a big chunk of data, or we knew that this was not going to be clean from a clinical's perspective or from an organizational perspective, we backed out of it, took it away, siloed it, and looked at it separately, and then brought it back in.

53:01

Challenges in acquiring relevant data and then verifying the data was probably the biggest challenge just to make sure that we weren't doing all of this pre-work only to load it than then to have to QA even more so, and then re-update the data.

53:18

So just taking a step back and being able to verify the data ahead of time and validated that it was correct at the onset was an important tool for us.

53:31

Next question is, how were you able to get operational and leadership buy-in for this?

53:36

Did you have to fight for it, or was this something that absolutely everybody saw was necessary?

53:43

They definitely already saw it as necessary.

53:45

We knew that we couldn't just use the innate Drupal search solution as an option for us, given our size, given our growth, given the number of providers and specialties that we were presenting on the website.

53:59

We knew we needed something more comprehensive and that gave the patient options for search by location, by zip code, by gender, by specialty, giving them the ability to find what they needed based on a search term query that was advanced enough to break down and understand what they were looking for, be it an individual word or phrase.

54:27

So leadership was definitely behind this. They understood this.

54:30

They might not have understood the individual nuances of it, but once we gave a presentation to show how it would affect a patient's search and their ability to make an appointment from there on out, which is the ultimate conversion, obviously, is to get that appointment and then get the repeat appointment. They were on board.

54:48

So how about measurement?

54:50

Were you able to track cost savings or increase appointments since you started using this provider data management?

54:55

Increased appointments for sure.

54:58

Also provider profile visibility, an increase in percentage across different specialties that were getting more time in, getting more of the spotlight.

55:09

So we were seeing different specialties come to the forefront because they were showcased in a different way.

55:14

So it was definitely nice to see and we had some great percentages and numbers to share after a few months of having this all stood up.

55:27

That sounds promising.

55:29

Do you have, can you give that care delivery?

55:31

This question is about care delivery.

55:33

Do you have any specific examples of how centralizing the data improved it at Summit?

55:40

Care delivery, meaning like patient care within the locations?

55:45

Yeah, or care delivery could be just allowing somebody to get an appointment, you know, to actually have a successful experience looking for someone and finding them.

55:52

So we definitely, when we did, when we were standing up the full integration, breaking down each specific line of scheduling was a point of importance and a pain point at the same time, because not every single provider opted for a booking online experience.

56:13

So we had to make concessions for those and figure out a way to display their bookability in the same manner that someone who was set up for online booking would have as well so that everyone would have more of a streamlined experience.

56:26

And if it was someone that you weren't able to book online due to just their schedule or they weren't taking new patients, we wanted it to have a more streamlined experience for someone to just a click to call, so to speak, or to log in directly to our patient portal and make an appointment through there.

56:45

You mentioned that there's something that runs overnight.

56:49

How does the automation keep everything up-to-date, the provider location data up-to-date?

56:55

We have a integration with Loyal and I think it might be the first and only of its kind.

57:02

With the data management piece of Loyal and our Drupal content management system.

57:09

Overnight, the two systems speak to each other and the data is through Loyal's data management, collects all of the data that sits in Drupal and throughout the day we update Drupal to make sure that it's the most up-to-date information that we've gathered throughout the day from emails or just notification distributions that we get and then the data is passed into the Care Search provider profiles making sure that it's the most up-to-date.

57:37

So while we are getting information throughout the day, we know that the won't be passed over until the next day and visible on the live site.

57:44

Right. Okay. So it's not real time, but it's pretty close to real time.

57:47

It's pretty close to real time.

57:49

But I'd rather it be correct versus wrong in a real time scenario. So it's better to be right and have a little bit of a delay.

57:59

Absolutely. Michelle, one for you.

58:01

What's the timeline and resource commitment for implementing provider data management for a large health system?

58:08

You know, I mentioned, it depends on what you're trying to get out of it.

58:13

So I talked about, do you want a shack or a mansion?

58:16

But let's just say you want an average, average, you know, again, so many variables, but if you have an integrate, if you have current data that we can build, let's say it was loyal, build an integration with and are able to pull into that data, building that integration can be pretty easy, let's say, because we've done it before.

58:44

So, you know, that can take, I don't know, say a couple weeks to get that integration in.

58:51

But then as you start to cleanse the data, that's where, again, you can scale up or down depending on how comfortable you are as an organization that your data is clean already, how much QA that you need to do, et cetera.

59:02

So, you know, I would say if I were to give just a random quote, I would say six to 12 weeks.

59:10

But again, that can vary widely. It could be six to 12 months.

59:17

It really, really depends on what you are trying to get out of it and where you're starting from and where you're trying to go.

59:25

Can you just talk a little bit about, you know, what goes into cleansing it?

59:29

What are the what are the things that happen during the cleansing of data?

59:33

So it depends on again, the reason you're pulling from the credentialing source, one of the things you want to make sure is that you've got the correct name that the person wants, the preferred names that people want to be called and not their official name. Um, do you have the full name?

59:50

Um, do you have the full set of credentials?

59:53

Do you have the phone numbers and the that they work or is that information coming from a different source and is that source that it's in like if it's coming from Epic your EHR it could be put into there as a non-friendly not patient consumed not public friendly naming convention and so do you if we have to go through the cleansing to make sure that the what's going to be seen to the public or presented to the public for your data management is what you want it to be seen.

1:00:26

So cleansing the names, cleansing the phone numbers, making sure that you have the appropriate headshots if you are adding headshots and full bios.

1:00:37

And then from a taxonomy perspective, there's a whole, that can be a whole process itself in aligning the conditions and treatments that your specialties treat.

1:00:46

So do your cardiologists do these 10, 20, 50 things and then down to the specific doctor.

1:00:52

So yes, you're a cardiologist, but you may not do some of some of the things that an organization says that they do.

1:00:58

So that cleansing process or implementation process is important as well.

1:01:03

So there's a lot of it can be part of another argument for why you can't do this on a spreadsheet.

1:01:11

Exactly.

1:01:14

Rose and data points.

1:01:16

Yeah, we're actually a couple of minutes over.

1:01:18

So that's all we have time for.

1:01:20

So, Rochelle and Stephanie, thank you for a great session and just a lot of really good information.

1:01:26

It sounds like you're really on the right track.

1:01:28

Thank you, Loyal, for sponsoring today's webinar.

1:01:31

So just for the audience, in a couple of days, you'll receive a link to view the recording.

1:01:35

So keep an eye out for that.

1:01:37

And a couple of announcements before we go.

1:01:39

We hope you can join us for the eHealth Care Leadership Award Ceremony.

1:01:42

That's gonna be at HCIC.

1:01:44

It's in Austin this year from November 10th to the 13th.

1:01:48

And the conference kicks off with a free award ceremony cocktail party and networking reception.

1:01:54

So if you haven't already, you can register at hcic.net.

1:01:57

And finally, our next webinar, and Rochelle mentioned AHA Media, is with AHA Media.

1:02:02

It's the power of plain language and physician marketing.

1:02:05

And presenters from AHA Media will share their research about the communication style physicians prefer.

1:02:11

So thank you all for attending today's webinar, and we hope you enjoy the rest of your day.