"They Never Say No": Why Planned Parenthood South Texas Went All-In on Qure4u

When the governor of Texas declared a state disaster in mid-March 2020, the leadership team at Planned Parenthood South Texas got a clear message: pending COVID-19 lockdowns would trigger care disruptions for its young, mainly Latina constituents around San Antonio, Harlingen, and Brownsville. To maintain some continuity of care, the healthcare provider would need to implement a virtual care solution — and fast.

"Planned Parenthood Federation of America had its own platform, but I wanted something where we wouldn't have to train staff on data from two different systems and have to transpose data from one system to another," said Polin Barraza, Senior VP and COO of Planned Parenthood South Texas. "We were already using athenahealth, so I looked at their recommended vendors, and the ratings for Qure4u were higher than everybody else's."

Barraza and her team vetted a handful of vendors, but there were two reasons the healthcare provider ultimately chose Qure4u. One was that Qure4u could implement the system quickly. And the second: "Meeting with the Qure4u team, I liked what I heard and the fact that they listened," Barraza said. "To have a vendor understand what we were asking for made all the difference in the world."

The telehealth capabilities offered a new access channel and afforded services to new communities. Plus, it ensured a means to continue care throughout 2020 and subsequent years, as Texas continued its lockdowns.

Barraza recalls being impressed with all the things Qure4u's platform could do. "The fact that Qure4u also features digital check-in and online appointments on top of telehealth — it is a full service, whereas others only have portions," she said.

Because Qure4u's platform includes a full suite of patient engagement tools, including telehealth, digital check-in, patient portal, and remote patient monitoring, all in one system, Qure4u's team was able to seamlessly integrate more digitization to the practice's workflows.

Digital patient intake

"We often had a big hiccup at the front desk because patients needed to fill out all the paperwork," Barraza said. "That made the appointments and the providers run late, and it affected our patient flow metrics."

To the delight of patients and staff, Qure4u could fix that. "When we learned about the app — that patients could fill out forms from home, they could check in from their cars — we realized we could make our metrics better," Barraza said. "Our staff will tell you, they just love having the digital check-in."

Newsfeed

"The newsfeed has given us the opportunity to notify our patients on-the-spot of news about the clinic, such as new hours, inclement weather delays, and to-the-minute legislative changes that impact treatments we can offer," Barraza said.

"We know patients are getting the messages because, at the start of this year, we announced new hours via the app, including new 6 a.m. appointments. Those appointments started filling up fast, so we know they got the message from the Qure4u app and emails."

The healthcare provider plans to develop an editorial calendar so that there is continuous reason for patient engagement with the app. "We want to keep finding things to put out on the newsfeed. It's so user-friendly and it's a pleasant surprise that our patients are willingly paying attention to it," Barraza said.

Online appointment-setting

Since implementing Qure4u, more patients have scheduled appointments online instead of calling the clinic to do so. The clinic believes the level of confidentiality that online scheduling allows patients benefits them.

More than 44,000 appointments have been scheduled online since the practice launched Qure4u. "The majority of our appointments now are booked through Qure4u," Barraza said. Because patients self-engage and commit to appointment times of their choosing, she believes, the no-show rate has decreased.

Spending less time on the phones allows clinic staff more time for patient care tasks and improved productivity.

According to Planned Parenthood leadership, the Qure4u team demonstrated clinical know-how as well as technology ins-and-outs. "Having the right person at our side, she understood our clinical needs and she really knew athenahealth," Barraza said. "She explained things in such a way that made sense to us. She was responsive and flexible. It meant everything to us that someone from a vendor would be that responsive."

Barraza and her team realized that, in addition to video training modules and phone calls, they needed more training after using the Qure4u platform. "Qure4u came to our office and sat with us at the reception desk," she said. "They watched how we interacted with patients. They coached us on best practices for using Qure4u for digital check-in, helping us be more direct with patients and using a mobile device to do it."

"I appreciate that Qure4u never says 'no,'" Barraza said. "Rather, it's, 'Let's figure out how to do something.' It feels like we've innovated together."