Alpine Oral and Facial Surgery is located in Missoula Montana. They help patients across the state with a number of surgical and healthcare needs, including solutions for health problems like sleep apnea, jaw deformities, dental issues, and chronic TMJ pain. Alpine staff decided they could better serve their community by opening a satellite location in Hamilton, MT. Now they are providing patients in both Missoula and the Bitterroot Valley with two facilities that treat complex oral and facial surgical problems on an outpatient basis.
Industry: Healthcare
Company Size: 14 Employees
Location: Missoula & Hamilton Montana
THE CHALLENGE
Find a technology that could be used for virtual consultations as well as document the technical aspect of the processes that would touch virtual consultations i.e.. scheduling & conducting virtual consultations. The solution selected must also be in alignment and compliant with regulations specific to Alpine’s practice. The driver for this project was the prospect of one of the providers leaving the practice. Administration was looking for ways to reach more patients and use the Providers time better while creating a differentiator in their market to serve rural and/ or busy patients i.e. reduce drive time for consultations for patients that average 2+ hours drive time away, or navigate around the need to pull patients out of school. In addition, the crisis situation of COVID-19 escalated the need to find ways to keep the business productive and staff employed.
Finding the Right Technology
Scheduling & Conducting Virtual Consultaions
Keeping Compliant with Regulations
Differentiating Themselves in Their Market
“First Call worked to turn our concept for this process into a reality. Their team took the lead to help create the workflow that we needed for our practice to thrive. We are now able to meet with our patients wherever they are and provide the care they need.
THE SOLUTION
First Call worked with the client to make sure we understood their process and their existing toolset, in this case, DSN as their System of record for scheduling and patient records. We also reviewed any regulatory requirements that may come into play on the solution i.e. consent must be provided at least 24 hours in advance so that patients have an opportunity to review and ask questions prior to a surgical procedure.
It helped that the client had a process already for dealing with “same-day consent signatures” by documenting in their scheduling process when the consent documentation is provided to the patient well in advance of the actual procedure so same-day sign becomes a nonissue.
THE RESULTS
First Call chose to implement Zoom as the tool for virtual consultations, and worked through the process and documented it with screen captures and step-by-step directions for scheduling and conducting a Zoom Consult. This was the deliverable for the project, from there the practice educated their users in an in-service meeting and today they did it with happy success.
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