Florida Community Health Centers enhances patient engagement, care and accessibility with Qure4u

Pandemic limits patient access

Florida Community Health Centers is a federally qualified healthcare center providing comprehensive primary, dental, pharmacy, and behavioral health services across 14 locations in six Florida counties. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for patients to physically receive care safely. Due to state regulations and social distancing guidelines, it wasn’t uncommon to see patients delaying preventative care during the height of the pandemic. FCHC’s 500 employees and clinicians needed to identify safe, new ways to maintain care delivery.

“We needed to evolve to a digital engagement strategy that not only captured patients’ attention, but kept them fully engaged in their care,” said Dr. Alejandro Miquel, chief medical officer.

Qure4u supports digital strategy

FCHC looked to athenahealth Marketplace partner Qure4u to implement a virtual care strategy, and launched telehealth services in August 2020.

The addition of Qure4u DriveUp™ functionality enabled the FCHC to add COVID screenings to digital workflows to further reduce the risk of exposure. Staff are able to send a quick link once a patient arrives to get real-time responses to a screening questionnaire. Any potential COVID-positive responses are immediately converted to a telehealth visit using the same Qure4u platform.

FCHC bolstered the safety of in-person visits once those resumed. Qure4u digital check-in offers patients a way to easily sign in for appointments, fill out paperwork, and pay copays, all from their mobile device — further limiting physical in-office interactions.

In July 2021, FCHC started a remote patient monitoring (RPM) program focused on hypertension patients. Each is given a kit with a scale and blood pressure cuff to use to monitor and report blood pressure readings from home. The goal is to keep patients connected between visits for proactive monitoring and early intervention.

The digital health and telehealth capabilities provided by Qure4u allowed providers to seamlessly transition from in-person to virtual visits, without any impact on the quality or patient experience. And, the patient interfaces are so easy to use. Even in our most underserved populations, the patients were still able to successfully schedule and obtain a telehealth visit.

-Dr. Alejandro Miquel, Chief Medical Officer, Florida Community Health Centers

Enhanced patient engagement and care

Since offering telehealth visits through Qure4u platform’s platform, FCHC has delivered more than 5,100 unique patient visits, with over 8,000 total encounters performed using that modality. More than 200 patients are now enrolled in the RPM initiative. “With Qure4u, we were able to significantly increase the number of patients we were able to enroll in the program, as well as better focus care managers on the patients who were non-compliant or out of range,” said Miquel.

Besides limiting exposure to COVID-19, the virtual care initiatives helped keep visit volume stead and increase access for a patient population that frequently encounters transportation issues.

The results of using Qure4u are both quantitative and qualitative, Miquel said. Qure4u is fully embedded within the athenahealth EHR, so there are no disruptive workflow changes, or new systems for clinicians to learn. “The digital health and telehealth capabilities provided by Qure4u allowed providers to seamlessly transition from in-person to virtual visits, without any impact on the quality or patient experience. And, the patient interfaces are so easy to use.”