The Right Patient at the Right Time: How UCHealth Uses Automated Messaging to Drive Patient Retention

// By Bill Altorfer //

UCHealth piloted triggered email reminders for breast cancer screenings, generating almost 1,000 mammogram appointments.

This past year was a year of transformation for UCHealth. Although such transformation during the COVID pandemic was challenging, it also gave rise to opportunities to improve patient experience in ways that weren’t initially on UCHealth’s strategic roadmap. What began in the fall of 2019 as an implementation of a new CRM environment and a migration of marketing automation platforms progressed from foundational newsletter campaigns into multichannel consumer journeys incorporating a variety of first-party data sources.

Heather Rose, director of marketing automation, UCHealth

Heather Rose, director of marketing automation at UCHealth, outlined the heightened sense of urgency to accelerate adoption of the new technology. “As COVID progressed, we were getting reports of people skipping or delaying screenings and therefore coming in with more progressed illnesses,” she says.

Reaching the right patient at the right time has been a driving principle behind UCHealth’s marketing automation and patient communication strategies from the get-go. With new technology in place, powered by first-party data streams, there were suddenly opportunities for UCHealth’s marketing team to play a critical role in facilitating needed encounters. Screening reminders seemed like a natural place to start.

“Screening campaigns were an opportunity to get in front of the curve, take one simple screening, and get people back on track. And screening mammograms were a perfect place to start,” Rose says.

Triggered Mammography Reminders Drive Appointments

UCHealth began sending automated screening reminders via a pilot campaign focused on mammography screenings. For qualified individuals, UCHealth sent an automated reminder email explaining the benefits of mammography screenings and encouraging consumers to schedule their screening.

Since the pilot campaign was turned on in early April 2021, UCHealth has sent more than 20,000 reminder messages. The results have been encouraging — of the 20,701 messages sent to current patients, 44 percent of recipients opened the message, and 7.8 percent of those individuals clicked on the call to action to schedule a mammogram. Simultaneously, only nine individuals unsubscribed, for an unsubscribe rate of .04 percent, well below industry and UCHealth’s global average.

Lagging indicators, including appointments scheduled by individuals who engaged in messaging, were also encouraging. Of individuals who were sent the reminders, nearly 5 percent scheduled their mammograms, including 20 percent of individuals who clicked. Recipients who opened/clicked the email were 1.8 times more likely to schedule appointments than individuals who didn’t engage with the messaging.

In total, 974 appointments were scheduled by individuals who opened or clicked on the mammography screening email in the first nine months, representing a full funnel conversion rate of nearly 5 percent.

The success of the mammography screening campaign has prompted UCHealth to accelerate additional triggered communications facilitating appointments for qualified individuals. The availability of first-party data to drive triggered communications has been paramount, and the focus on creating flexible and scalable data models will continue to be integral as more communications are developed.

“The beauty of triggered automations is that they’re always on, working for you and for your patients. We have a list of campaigns this year that utilize this strategy,” Rose says. “We are currently developing a campaign for a reminder for annual wellness visits.”

“UCHealth has been incredibly forward-thinking in how they use marketing automation technology to bridge gaps between traditional retention marketing strategies and patient experience. It’s wonderful to see such great success of a pilot that’s impacting patient behavior for the better,” says Rohit Narayan, chief customer officer at Cured, the healthcare digital marketing and CRM platform that partnered with UCHealth to implement the triggered campaign strategy.

Rose envisions using similar production techniques to supplement additional digital campaigns at UCHealth. “The mammogram email is part of a larger strategy, focused on health screenings for women over the age of 40. This email is focused on our existing patient group, while we have other digital and social assets in markets for new patients,” she says.

When asked about the challenges of implementing the campaign, Rose commented that it wasn’t the technology. The biggest challenge was getting the content right and aligning with clinical experts. “The messaging in this email needed to be reviewed and approved by our clinical experts,” she says. “We went through several reviews and revisions as more relevant information was made available during the pandemic. We are about to go through another revision to optimize the user experience based on what we’ve learned.”

Bill Altorfer is a principal associate at Cured, a healthcare digital marketing platform and CRM. He has a decade of experience working with health systems and large enterprises as a developer and solutions consultant.