Mr. Campbell is the Senior Manager for homecare order fulfillment at KCI. He oversees the successful and timely processing of over 114,000 orders a year. Curtis has over ten years’ experience in the healthcare industry, primarily in durable medical equipment. Curtis is also a 10-year enlisted reservist with the U.S. Army. His current focus is expanding KCI’s operations into a more robust digital platform to provide the best service technology to all customers.
Ms. Hahn is the Director of Support Operations at KCI. She oversees the National Contact Center and support operations teams for KCI. Michelle has over 15 years of experience in healthcare and customer service industries and a passion for improving the customer experience. Her current focus is enhancing the current KCI Express portal to make order entry easier and to provide more self-service options to KCI customers.
Campbell and Hahn_Discharge Planning and Transitional Care_2018_Volume 1_Issue 1
The new year has brought on a new set of resolutions for the Advantage Center. The Advantage Center is KCI’s main hub for all things related to homecare ordering. All of KCI’s customer touch points, referral requests, and claims come through the Advantage Center 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We have resolved to improve our customer experience by leveraging technology. One of the focus areas is around electronic medical records (EMR) and referral management software. Both EMR and referral management software are designed to help healthcare providers improve patient’s healthcare quality. With the EMR market sitting at $23 billion and showing no signs of slowing in growth,1it makes it important for KCI to leverage the available technology to maximize our relationships with our customers.
Looking back at the third quarter of 2017, KCI became aware that there were large customer groups that utilized Allscripts® to send their EMR referrals to us. These customers appeared to be in geographic pockets and typically were connected or chained. During a site visit to one of these locations, KCI realized that we could better leverage our Allscripts®platform for customers to better engage and improve the ordering and fulfillment process for EMR referrals. We launched a pilot in our Central U.S. market with an updated Allscripts® platform that allows real-time response and confirmation of referral receipts to our customers.
EMR Enhancement Pilot Focus and the Outcomes
The pilot was focused on 3 critical elements:
1.To assure customers that their referrals have been received in a timely manner,
2.To inform customers where their referrals were in our review process, which includes referral intake, review, approval and fulfillment, and
3.To give customers the ability to inquire or provide additional items needed for the processing of their referrals in a centralized location.
Over the course of 3 months and 690 survey responses, KCI noted significant improvements in the pilot data.
As shown in Figure 1, 94% of the time our response time for receipt of EMR referrals to the customer was under 30 minutes. This was a huge improvement in service levels for our customers who want to know that their EMR referrals are received and are being processed for fulfillment. According to customer feedback from 2017 surveys, a large percentage of customers stated they wanted timely reassurance that their referrals had been received; this technology allows KCI to meet that need.
Figure 2 shows the customers’ experience in the pilot regions. As the graphs show, customers who participated in the pilot experienced a reduced rate of canceled referrals. A canceled referral means that the requestor now has to spend additional time finding a different durable medical equipment (DME) provider to service the needs of the patient. The referral approval release time was also compared to customers nationally.3,4 After 3 months of piloting, customer feedback was 100% positive and aligned with our data. As of April 2, 2018, KCI has rolled the Allscripts® EMR platform nationally to all customers who utilize Allscripts
Figure 2Top chart demonstrates the rate of improvement on canceled referrals in the pilot (pink) over non-pilot.Bottom chart demonstrates the rate of improvement to approve a referral for fulfillment in the pilot (pink) over non-pilot.
Next Steps with EMR
Since Allscripts® proved to be a huge success with our customers, KCI is now reviewing other leading EMR platforms that are utilized by our customers and looking to further enhance their experience as well. Currently KCI has developed an improved user experience with Allscripts®, WoundExpert®(net health) and i-heal® from HealogicsTM. Better leveraging EMRs such as CuraspanTM, Epic® and Cerner® would allow us to better serve this growing market of shared health records and referral management systems. KCI will continue to grow and meet our customers’ needs in these technological spaces and provide unparalleled world class customer service.
Improving the ordering process through KCI EXPRESS® and the iOn HEALINGTM Mobile App
In September of 2017 KCI, an Acelity company, completed a Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey on the post-acute order process with 690 customers (Figure 3). Overall the order process received high scores with a score of 8.3 out of 10. We identified an opportunity with the time it took to enter an order and the amount of information requested to place an order in our online ordering portal www.KCIExpress.com.
In 2017 KCI launched a new app called the iOn HEALINGTM Mobile App (http://ionhealingapp.com) for customers to be able to enter orders from their smartphone or tablet.
We identified that customers who used this app had an improved ordering experience compared to KCI EXPRESS® Program customers (Figure 4). KCI sought to mirror the iOn HEALINGTM Mobile App ordering experience with the KCI EXPRESS® Program online ordering experience.
Based on this data, we will be implementing enhancements in two phases for the KCI EXPRESS® Program portal. Phase 1 will include better identification of the required fields and the addition of embedded guidance for users to help them navigate more quickly. This Phase 1 enhancement will roll out in the second quarter of 2018.
In 2017 we identified an opportunity to improve the customer experience related to obtaining status of an order. Currently, customers call our 24/7 customer support line at 1-800-275-4524 or email the representatives working on their order to verify its status and the next steps in the order process. In March of 2018, we began a pilot of a new online portal to provide order status separate from our KCI EXPRESS® Program portal allowing those without a log-in to obtain the status of an order (www.KCIExpress.com). We are currently working with pilot customers to obtain their feedback and plan to roll out the enhanced version of this portal in the third quarter 2018.
Phase 2 will include adding an “easy option” for those that would like to enter only the minimum amount of information for KCI to evaluate placement of our product against insurance requirements. This second phase is targeted for a third quarter 2018 roll out.
Our goal is to better understand the needs of our customer and better leverage technology to meet those needs. We also plan to add the capability to check order status to our Integrated Voice Response (IVR), as well as other self-service options throughout 2018 as we learn more about what would make the ordering experience easier for our customers.
References
1.Global Electronic Health Records (EHR) Market Expected to Reach $33,294 Million by 2023 – Allied Market Research. PR Newswire: news distribution, targeting and monitoring. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-electronic-health-records-ehr-market-expected-to-reach-33294-million-by-2023—allied-market-research-672148563.html. Accessed April 2018.
2.Allscripts snaps up rival Practice Fusion, the largest free EHR vendor, in $100M deal. FiercePharma. https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/allscripts-acquires-competitor-and-largest-free-ehr-vendor-practice-fusion-cash-deal. Published January 10, 2018. Accessed April 2018.
3.Dropping the Ball Despite an Integrated EMR. PSNet: Patient Safety Network. https://psnet.ahrq.gov/webmm/case/237/dropping-the-ball-despite-an-integrated-emr. Accessed April 2018.
4.Jonathan Govette. 5 Physician Referral Mistakes You Don’t Know You’re Making. ReferralMD. https://getreferralmd.com/2013/08/physician-referral-mistakes/. Published November 18, 2017. Accessed April 2018.
