Physicians Practice - Tech Guide 2008 - (Page 70)

WEB SURFING ENHANCED EFFICIENCY “Whenever I have two minutes between patients I can just sit down and send off a couple of responses, and I couldn’t place a phone call in such a short time.” Bill Moshofsky, MD and comments on future directions. The practice uses software to link its EMR to a secure e-mail service, so physicians can respond to patient email requests quickly and safely. The Office of Orthopaedic Medicine and Surgery called on iHealthSpot to create its new Web site. That company grew out of a partnership between a patient with a broken leg and a surgeon with an interest in Web technology. Today, iHealthSpot specializes in Web site design for small physician practices, also offering secure e-mail hosting, patient education materials, search engine optimization, and nightly backups. Its most complete package will set you back roughly $3,000. Clearly, patients value being able to easily access their physicians and take care of personal healthcare tasks via the Internet. And the physicians who understand this enjoy the enhanced efﬁciency highly developed practice Web sites can bring. But it’s difﬁcult to quantify exactly how much time a well-run, multifunctional Web site can save the average practice. Simply posting your address, map, and directions on your site likely saves some phone time for your front-ofﬁce staff — but exactly how much time? Village Health Partners can give you an idea: Named Practice of the Year in 2006 by Physicians Practice, this group is on the cutting edge of Web-based technology, with a seam- lessly integrated EMR and secure email messaging. “The national average for staff in a primary-care practice is just under ﬁve employees per physician,” says Crow. “We need less than 2.5 em-ployees per physician.” You can do the math. When Crow arrives at work in the morning, lab results from yesterday’s patients are in their respective electronic charts. “I review them and then click a few times to e-mail those patients that their results are waiting on our Web site. The work flow takes seconds,” he says. “Compared to the old system with paper charts and lab reports, where you handed the chart to a nurse who sent the information to the patient … you are probably saving $5 or $6 each time you send out lab results.” • Elaine Zablocki is a writer who has focused on healthcare issues for more than 20 years. She is the editor of Great Boards newsletter and Physician Ofﬁce Laboratory News, and she contributes to many other healthcare publications. She can be reached via editor@physicianspractice.com. This article originally appeared in the May 2007 issue of Physicians Practice. A CASE STUDY: EXPLOIT YOUR SITE’S FULL POTENTIAL Fallon Clinic, with more than 20 clinical sites in Massachusetts and more than 250-plus physicians, used its Web site to cope with a unique marketing challenge. Fallon was once part of an integrated healthcare delivery network, and members of the Fallon Community Health Plan were all served by Fallon Clinic physicians. No other health insurance plans were accepted. Three years ago, Fallon Clinic separated from its health plan and became an independent organization. It needed to let potential patients know that it had changed its policy to accept most major insurance carriers. If you go to its Web site today (www.fallonclinic.org), this fact couldn’t be clearer; the home 70 page announces the clinic’s acceptance of “more than 20 kinds of health insurance.” “The clinic had to reinvent itself after 75 years, and the Web site has helped us tremendously,” says Rhian Gregory, Fallon’s director of marketing and communications. “We redesigned it, and we used integrated marketing strategies to invite people to visit.” For example, the clinic ran 10-second ads on local radio stations, urging potential patients to visit “Fallon Clinic dot org, where you can meet our doctors.” And since many of Fallon’s physicians are local ice hockey fans, Fallon advertised on the Jumbotron during games, challenging folks in the stands with a sporting wager: “The bet is on,” the ad read, “Fallon Clinic will give you ﬁve dollars if we don’t accept your health insurance.” Through these outreach efforts, visits to Fallon’s Web site increased from 500 to 10,000 hits per month. Culling visitor data from the site has proven valuable for shaping its future development and for business planning for the clinic as a whole. For example, when Fallon posted information about all its doctors on its site, that “helped drive more business into our primary-care units,” says Gregory. And as people seek information about medical services that the clinic currently does not offer, the clinic’s management gains a better understanding of what its customer base wants. | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | TECHNOLOGY GUIDE WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM http://www.fallonclinic.org http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physicians Practice - Tech Guide 2008

Physicians Practice - Tech Guide 2008 TG Cover Story: Protect Your Practice and Sleep Better Operations: Paperless? Not Quite The Internet: You've Got Mail...Or Do You? Patient Relations: Attention Grabbers The Tech Doctor: All About Blogs Lessons Learned: 'My EMR Nightmare...And Why I'd Do It Again' Scheduling: No More No-Shows The Marketplace: Who's Got Your Back IT Enhancement: Time, at Last, for an Upgrade? Online: 'Yup, I'm a Junkie. And Proud of It.' In the Office: New Technologies in the Workplace: Blessing or Curse? Web Surfing: If You Build It...

Physicians Practice - Tech Guide 2008

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