EnSofia
Improving Patient Engagement for Better Healthcare Outcomes

What is Patient Engagement or Digital Front Door and similar buzz words? Why should I care?

Ask 2 people, you get 3 answers. Some say it is Telehealth visits, Telemedicine, possibly sending SMS appointment reminders, others say better portal, or so many other technologies.

And if you ask why I should do any of this; how much I should spend and who is the best vendor, you open a can of worms and infinite inconclusive answers.

Instead, you should ask: what are the problems that I’m trying to solve? And what I can solve now.

“There are three fundamental problems that impact the U.S. healthcare system, with the biggest one, I see, is Clinician Burnout. Which leads to higher cost and unpredictable health outcomes” begins Sameh Michaiel, CTO, and founder of EnSofia.

Physicians and clinicians are under continuous pressure all day long. Continuously switching gears from one patient to another, difficult medical decisions to make frequently, backlog of calls and In-Basket, EHR Charting, billing, insurance headaches and numerous other tasks, let alone, in some cases, emotional stress. All of these are some of the causes of burnout. In addition, as many have observed and written about the impact of the pandemic on physician burnout.

It is not too difficult to draw the conclusion that the burnout leads to discontinuation of patient care, leading to higher costs and unpredictable healthcare outcomes.

When you deploy tools and methods to address the cause of the burnout, you reverse the cycle. That is when the patient engagement, digital front door, and the other technologies come to the rescue. The good news is that these technologies are out there and deployed successfully in other industries, like the financial industry. It produced better consumer engagement, lower cost, and much less burnout. Yet, be cognitive to choose a platform not siloed solutions for the different needs. Instead, always consider a holistical approach and solution.

This is where EnSofia makes a world of difference.

EnSofia has developed a HIPAA cloud platform that includes patient journey engagement, communication, and automation

solutions. This plays a vital role in improving patient, clinician, and systems communications & interactions across any channel of communication (SMS, Chat, video, phone, Web, Mobile App, email, ….).

At the solution’s cornerstone, is Sofia. Sofia is Conversation AI, “she” converses with patients to take off some of the workload from the staff.

EnSofia empowers providers to make the patient journey smooth. The platform leverage AI technologies for the complete Patient Journey. According to Ensofia that journey includes 4 major stations: 1) Before an Appointment, 2) During the Appointment 3) After the Appointment and, 4) Between Appointments. Including a medical pathway and protocol automation for all patients and clinic communications and follow up on any & all channel of communication that the patients prefer.

For example, for patients who are seeking appointments: With the built-in digital forms, new patient can register online with the forms integrated into the EHR. It has a Smart Calendar that optimizes the provider’s calendar. Those appointments can either be fully automated for self-scheduling or semi-automated for scheduling by requesting an appointment. With the reminder feature, the platform ensures that appointments are not missed. These appointments can be made using the solution built-in voice or video conferencing capabilities. With EnSofia-Pay, the solution request patients to pay their co-pay & responsibilities through a secured payment link. To further reduce the workload on staff, the EnSofia virtual agent automatically sends patients the requested medication lists or lab results.

As a result, the platform simultaneously reduces the clinician’s burnout, improves patient experience & satisfaction, , and increases the revenue for a clinic or hospital system.

To put things into perspective, Lighthouse Pediatrics clinic, was facing patients’ payment backlog problem. For this client, the EnSofia platform sent automated payment request to child’s guardian that including a secure link. The platform ensured that all the payments were automatically deposited to the clinic’s bank account and auto-posted on the EHR. In the very first month, Lighthouse Pediatrics received approximately 5 times increase in the usual patients’ payments. This reduced patients’ payment A/R ageing by more than 60%. With more than 43% of all payments made off hours. This is a perfect example of how convenient the payment process was! The entire process did not involve a single staff member. The clinic sees a clear reduction in staff workload while enjoying the increase in revenue.

The fundamental problem within the U.S. healthcare system is the way it approaches patient engagement

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Going forward, EnSofia’s primary objective is to resolve more of client’s pain points utilizing the AI platform. For example, the company has engaged with a rural health system to help them improve Pediatrics care in their areas. They were struggling to improve patient access owing to the reliance on call centers. This client has greatly benefitted by the Conversational AI feature of the platform that allowed them to aptly handle all the appointments 24/7. EnSofia is also looking to expand into suburban healthcare systems where its mass deployment capability holds immense value. “In the coming months, our primary objective is to solve the pain points of clinics and midsize hospital to help them reduce their burnouts," Michaiel concludes.