DASHcentral Functional Design Document

DASHcentral

DASHcentral has a variety of customizable features within the scheduling platform that are able to be modified or updated to meet your needs . This document outlines a description of those features so that you can choose the option that works best at your organization. The implementation team will utilize a combination of these design decisions and your data template to design, configure, and test your DASHcentral environment. You will complete the grid by filling out your decisions in the third column as seen in the attached file. For any questions or clarifications, please reach out to your Client Operations Manager

DASH Marketing Recommendations: Introducing it to Your Patients

Introduction

Implementing DASH is more than simply purchasing a new technology subscription. In order to use the solution to truly transform the patient experience, it requires organization-wide collaboration internally, and a clear plan for roll-out and communication externally. In this guide we outline sample plans and resources that you can use to ensure a successful DASH implementation. The best way to use this document is as a template version of a checklist. Pick what you think is important, plan what is accessible via your existing marketing and communication channels, and modify as needed for your practice.  

Set A Goal

Setting a goal allows you to determine which tactics to deploy. Since you have limited time (even if you have unlimited money), it is important to focus only on tactics that will help you meet your goal. We outline some example goals below so you can pick one or two to align your campaign around:

• Potential Operational Goals

  • DASHin:

    • At least 50% of patients overall can complete mobile check-in 

    • Reduce wait-time to under five minutes for 80% of patients

    • Collect co-pays from at least 50% of patient prior to appointment visit

  • DASHself:

    • At least 12% of patient appointments are self scheduled

  • DASHconnect:

    • At least 75% of patients are confirming, cancelling, or rescheduling appointments

• Potential Financial Goals

  • DASHin:

    • Drive patient volume using mobile check-in as a differentiator, increasing utilization by 5% 

    • Increase POS collections by 10%

• Potential Experience Goals 

  • DASHin:

    • Institute standardized patient intake experience across practices

  • DASHconnect:

    • Increase patient NPS by 10 points over a 3-month period 

Segment Your Audience 

Understanding your audience will help you execute on a successful launch for DASH. Messages and promotional activities that work for one segment of your audience may not be well suited for others. We advise clients to start with the following audience segment. Yours may be different.

• Existing patients: these are patients that have recently visited your practice and are likely to visit you in the near future. 

• Past or new patients: these are patients that have not recently visited your practice and may be a good target audience for patient acquisition.  

• Employees: your internal teams can ensure that patients feel empowered and that their inputs are received, acknowledged, and appropriately addressed. Ensure they’re up to speed on the offerings, ways to communicate the information to your patients, and commonly asked questions.

• Community stakeholders and influencers: these may be a smaller group of individuals that can help spread the word about your efforts on meeting consumer expectations to the benefit of your practice.

Plan Your Promotional Tactics

To get started we recommend the following tactics to ensure that your mobile check-in solution is adopted quickly and helps you meet your goals. You may already be working with an agency that can provide more tailored material for you but if that’s not the case, you’ll find some of these resources particularly valuable. 

• Press Release - publish a press release highlighting your selection of a mobile check-in solution (audience: influencers) See Radix Health press release template

• Contact reporters - use your local connections to secure an interview about your mobile check-in solutions to ensure that the impact of your press release is amplified (audience: influencers)  See Radix Health sample email

• Communicate with your teams about the investment in DASHin and how they can help (audience: employees) See Radix Health sample email

• Feature an image on the homepage of your website announcing mobile check-in or contactless check-in (audience: existing patients) See Radix Health website image example 

• Create a landing page to highlight your investment in a digital check-in solution. We have created some material you can use as a starting point. See Radix Health website landing page template  

• If you have an automated voice recording that plays when patients are on hold while scheduling an appointment, for example, update the messaging to include an announcement about activating mobile check-in (existing patients) See Radix Health sample script

• If you currently have a monthly newsletter that goes out to all patients, include an announcement about activating mobile check-in (audience: existing or new patients) See Radix Health sample messaging

• If you frequently run postcard campaigns to residents in certain zip codes, run a campaign around activating mobile check-in (audience: existing or new patients) See Radix Health postcard template

• Do you have a patient advisory board? If so, ask them for ideas since they will have more creative and contextually relevant tactics and will amplify your message (audience: influencers)

• Social media - plan a social media campaign that includes images of mobile check-in (audience: employees, existing patients) See Radix Health social media image templates

• Get your providers on board. If they mention to patients that they are excited about mobile-check in, patients are likely to react positively and, in turn, tell others

• Modify your appointment reminders to include messaging on digital check-in. When patients are scheduling an appointment, tell them that you will be sending them a link to complete their form electronically. See Radix Health sample messages

• In-office artwork: Use posters and placards in your practice to advertise mobile check-in See Radix Health poster template

Plan Your Rollout

Not everything needs to or even should be activated at once. We recommend creating a roll-out plan as follows:

• Three months before Go-Live: 

  • Review your check-in experience across your locations and create a plan for what it should look like. Too often we find that practices have disparate procedures in different locations. Sometimes, these add complexity to every part of roll-out without adding any value to the practice or benefit to the patients. Complexity isn’t always bad, just make sure that it’s worth the drag. 

• One month before Go-Live: 

  • Ensure that your internal stakeholders are aware of the upcoming roll-out. 

  • Set the expectation that you will need their help in a successful roll-out.

  • Establish a point-person internally to answer stakeholder questions and concerns.  

  • Identify reporters to reach out to for a story around digital check-in.

  • Build social media posts, emails, and other assets, communications, and collateral to prepare for your roll out.

• At Go-Live: 

  • Get your internal stakeholders excited. Their enthusiasm will be far more effective than any poster we can co-create. 

  • Appoint one person to collect, review, and share feedback on the mobile check-in process from clients and users across locations. 

  • Publish press release and push social media posts live.

• Two weeks after Go-Live

  • Begin addressing feedback from patients. Identify any areas to fine tune and re-share via social, email, or other channels as appropriate.

• One month after Go-Live

  • Share KPIs and success metrics internally. Pick one or two numbers that everyone can rally around. 

• Six months after Go-Live

  • Review KPIs and create collateral highlighting positive patient feedback for subsequent campaigns.

• One year after Go-Live: it’s time to take those posters down, if you haven’t already.

Templates & guidelines

Found in Appendix of linked PDF

How to Optimize Triage In DASHcentral

How Does Triage Work in DASH?

Triage is designed to guide the patient through a series of Yes/No & Either/Or questions that provide further detail for the reason for visit. Triage can be optional or required, and can be assigned to singular chief complaints or multiple chief complaints. 

Triage questions should be used if the patient’s answer could impact the scheduling workflow - triage can:

1) Limit the services offered

2) Prompt the provider specialty

3) Limit the providers able to treat the patient 

4) Guide the correct appointment type

You can view an example of how triage works here

How to Optimize Triage Workflows: 

Radix recommends using triage for the following scenarios:

1. If a chief complaint can indicate symptoms that require emergency, stopping the scheduling process

   • Example 1: Patient has a compound arm fracture - direct patient to emergency room

   • Example 2: Patient has bowel or bladder dysfunction relating to a spine injury - direct patient to emergency room

2. If a chief complaint may apply/overlap across multiple specialties, and different symptoms may prompt the scheduler to choose a particular specialty

   • Example 1: Patient has a shoulder injury that radiates down their back - schedule with a Spine specialist

   • Example 2: Patient is seeking a non-surgical opinion - schedule with a PM&R specialist

3. If certain chief complaints require that certain process checks have been completed prior to scheduling

   • Example 1: Patient is having recurring migraines and wants to see a neurologist, but hasn't been to their PCP for the same issue

   • Example 2: Patient is scheduling an appointment for workers compensation, but can’t provide the required case policy information in order to proceed with schedule

Avoid Triage for:

• Something that requires clinical expertise - Radix triage is not meant to replace a line of questioning that may require professional clinical training. Instead, consider a triage question that directs the scheduler to transfer the call to a medical professional 

• Administrative reminders - adding stops and additional clicks in the scheduling process strictly for the purpose of a training reminder can frustrate schedulers. For example, refrain from building in reminders to greet patients a certain way or offer directions to the clinic

Data Collection for your DASH Environment:

Be sure to indicate what should happen in the scheduling process depending on how triage is answered. 

Chief Complaint:

Shoulder

Triage Question:

1. Is your injury the result of a sports accident?

   • If yes: Schedule with a sports medicine specialist

   • If no: Proceed to question #2

2. Have you had prior imaging performed?

   • If yes: Proceed to question #3

   • If no: Proceed with scheduling
     
     
     
     
     
     

DASH New Patient Flag Overview

What is the New Patient Flag?

The New Patient flag is a red icon in the DASHcentral scheduling screen that suggests to schedulers which provider should receive the next new patient. 

Assignment of the New Patient flag depends on the calculation option selected by the client (see available options below).  

The New Patient Flag feature enables your practice to:

• Discontinue manual new patient allocation tracking and assignment - the  flag will automatically display for providers who treat the selected chief complaint and age range of the patient

• Collect the reason for why a scheduler did not schedule a new patient with the provider with the flag - the flag only serves as a suggestion. If you wish to track why the new patient flag is not being followed, a separate popup question to the scheduler must be configured for this. Answers to the popup can be viewed in PowerBI.

• Customize which providers are included in the rotation. 

How is the New Patient Flag Calculated?

Practices can choose which calculation meets their needs. Please note that in order for the New Patient Flag distribution methods to have the desired outcome, schedulers should be trained to consistently follow the suggestion.

Option A: Equal Opportunity

The equal opportunity method is designed and calculated to give each provider an equal number of chances to receive a new patient by randomly assigning the flag to one of the available providers. This distribution method is statistically proven to even out over time. Providers with availability to see more patients (based on fewer restrictions from chief complaints, provider preferences, etc.) may be favored because they will appear in the list of eligible providers more often, and therefore have more chances to be assigned the flag.

Considerations:

Randomization takes time for the new patient flag distribution to even out, and short term surpluses or shortages can occur. 

Option B: Equal Distribution

The equal distribution evaluation is designed to provide each provider with the same percentage of new patients coming into the practice. Based on the providers’ schedules, the provider with the lowest percentage of future new patients is assigned the New Patient flag to help balance out the distribution among the entire practice. In short, Provider A has 3 new patients on her schedule and Provider B only has 2, the flag will be assigned to Provider B to allow equal distribution of new patients.

Considerations:

Providers with a high number of new patient referrals will not be highlighted with the New Patient flag as often as other providers. Additionally, providers with more restrictive template rules may be highlighted more often because their percentage of new patients may be lower. This method is preferable for practices attempting to standardize rules.

DASH 21.1: Triage Design Updates

Overview

According to the triage workflows that your clinic wants to set up, you will now have the ability to set up triage questions and subsequent scheduling suggestions. You will first need to create triage questions and then group them together to form a triage decision tree for a particular chief complaint.

Setting the Stage: DASH Glossary

These are some common terms you’ll find in DASH.

Triage

The assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses to decide the order of treatment.

DASH Triage Questions

A set of questions based on the chief complaint that you enter, which will guide you on which services, facilities, and providers to select to best treat the patient.

DASH Decision Tree

A chief complaint-driven workflow consists of a particular set of questions, each with two options, the outcome of which will help the scheduler arrive at a decision on how best to proceed with scheduling for the selected chief complaint.

DASH Terminal Node

The last step of a particular path of any triage decision tree, where the user is presented with the following options: display a text outcome to the user, assign specialties, assign services, assign facilities, assign providers, assign attributes to set (you can add multiple attributes).

How to Add a Triage Question

1. Go to the triage configuration option under the configuration tab on DASH, and make sure the questions tab is selected.

2. Click on the “Add” button to add your question and the two possible answers. The questions will now show up in the question list and will be assigned a question id. You will also be able to edit and delete and search for previously added questions.

How to Create a Triage Decision Tree

1. Click on the decision tree tab on the triage configuration screen, and click on “Add”.

2. Specify the name you want to assign to your decision tree and select “Add” to the list with an associated ID.

3. Click on the tree name and click on ‘Add root step.” You will be prompted to select a previously added question or add a new question for the root step.

4. After you add the root question, it will show up below the decision tree name with two possible answers, so that you can add the next steps for each. After you click on one of those answers, you have two options- to either keep adding questions, or to mark that as a terminal node, meaning that the triage workflow will end there with suggestions for the scheduler on how to proceed.

5. To keep adding questions, follow the same workflow as suggested above.

6. When you want to mark an answer as a terminal node:

   Click on the “Mark as terminal node” checkbox.

Need to save this or use the information for training? Get a PDF version here:

Get the complete DASH 21.1 Product Release Notes here.

Watch the training session here.