Results

About Family Health Care

Family Health Care is a large, integrated community health center providing high-quality, affordable, and comprehensive healthcare in the Baldwin, Michigan area. One of the first community health centers in the nation to develop a “one-stop shopping” concept for healthcare, Family Health Care offers a variety of medical, dental, laboratory, x-ray, and pharmacy services to its community.

Opportunity

Before implementing Vital Interaction , Family Health Care was dealing with missed appointments, delayed follow-ups and difficulty reaching patients. They had multiple, non-customizable platforms they were using to text, email, and call patients for appointment reminders and other patient communications. This fragmented approach was expensive and difficult to support since they were using multiple vendors. After learning that Vital Interaction not only offered hyper-personalized patient communication but also automated reactivation campaigns, CIO Tina McConnell knew that Vital Interaction would best fit Family Health Care’s needs.

Switching to Vital Interaction immediately improved our no-show rates. One of the biggest wins was the automatic write-back feature, which monitors canceled or missed appointments and reaches out to patients to reschedule, resulting in a significant increase in rebooked appointments. Additionally, tasks like managing provider cancellations, which used to take considerable time, were streamlined and reduced by tenfold. The platform has been transformative for our organization.

Tina McConnell

CIO, CSO, & Privacy Officer | Family Health Care

A Need for Centralized Patient Communication and Increased Engagement

As an integrated health center, Family Health Care could only provide quality care as long as they could bring the patients in—but they were experiencing gaps in patient rates for annual exams, mammograms, colonoscopies, and follow-up care for diabetic patients. They needed a solution that not only centralized their patient communications but one that would also help improve their patient engagement rates. McConnell said, “Because Vital Interaction’s reactivation feature could automate gaps in care, we knew we would see immediate results.”

McConnell, who also serves as Family Health Care’s Chief Security Officer and Privacy Officer, first discussed Vital Interaction’s capabilities with various internal stakeholders including the IT department, the Director of Clinical Operations, and the Director of Quality. By the time she approached the CFO about implementing Vital Interaction, she received an immediate yes since there was already buy-in from the other departments.

Immediate Impact of Vital Interaction

Family Health Care quickly began seeing measurable results after implementing Vital Interaction.

By automating routine outreach campaigns—including pre-visit communication, product pickup messages, cancellation notices, and birthday messages—the organization significantly reduced manual workload. With each automated message saving an average of one minute, Family Health Care has saved over 1,791 staff hours, allowing teams to focus more on direct patient care and other high-value tasks.

Additionally, by automatically offering patients who canceled the opportunity to reschedule their appointments and proactively contacting patients during scheduling gaps, Vital Interaction significantly improved appointment adherence for the health center.

Family Health Care has extensively utilized Vital Interaction’s easy-to-use Group Messaging feature for various initiatives. One of the most frequent use cases was for vaccine campaigns, and another was for provider cancellations. Before Vital Interaction, Family Health Care used a separate platform to send these messages which required a long setup time. After switching to Group Patient Messaging, McConnell said, “My staff member sent me an email in all capital letters, ‘Vital Interaction is so amazing for provider cancellations.’ It was transformative for her. What used to take a long time to do was reduced by tenfold.”

In addition to time savings, the health center saw a notable improvement in appointment adherence. The no-show rate dropped from 11.51% to 9%, helping ensure more patients received the care they needed while making better use of available appointment slots.

“That was a really big immediate win for us,” said McConnell. “I don’t know what the secret sauce is, but the fact is that when we switched to Vital Interaction to reach out to patients and remind them of their appointments, we saw an immediate improvement in the no-show rate.”

When Family Healthcare recognized the need to proactively engage patients with multiple comorbidities, RN Complex Care Managers, who specialize in coordinating care for patients with complex health needs, used Vital Interaction to identify individuals who met specific criteria. They also used Vital Interaction to reach out to these patients, cross-reference their care plans, and invite them for additional consultations as necessary.

Looking Ahead: Expanding Use Cases with Vital Interaction

Family Health Care is now exploring the potential of using Vital Interaction’s Provider-recorded Calls, specifically for reactivation campaigns. Several providers have expressed interest in this feature, recognizing its ability to enhance patient engagement and improve outcomes. There is also interest in using Vital Interaction to send patient education information to patients coming in for a procedure.

The health center is also looking to further improve HEDIS scores by implementing more customized, diagnosis-based reactivation campaigns. With plans to roll out these tailored reactivation types in early 2025, the health center aims to better engage patients who need specific care interventions, ensuring timely follow-ups and addressing gaps in care to drive improved outcomes.

Additionally, Family Healthcare received a grant that enabled the hiring of an Early Childhood Development Coordinator. This position will focus on using Vital Interaction to identify and reach out to eligible patients for well-child checks, vaccinations, and other pediatric services to encourage regular preventive care and reduce reliance on urgent care services.

Vital Interaction Benefits the Entire Organization

Family Health Care values the strong partnership with Vital Interaction, recognizing the company’s expertise, product quality, and reliable performance. Their confidence in Vital Interaction’s team, product, and delivery process has been a crucial factor in the success of their partnership. McConnell advises, “While the time and work spent on Vital Interaction may take away from something else you’re trying to get done at the time, it is so worth it in the end because the ROI is there every single time. So what might take time to set up today is going to save me time tomorrow, it’s going to make my time more efficient, and it’s going to make my data more accurate.”

The widespread adoption of Vital Interaction across multiple departments underscores its significant impact on the organization as a whole. By providing a versatile solution that benefits various teams, Vital Interaction has proven to be a valuable asset to the entire Family Health Care organization. “I would definitely recommend Vital Interaction. We look forward to continuing working with them for a long time,” adds McConnell.