Fisher-Titus Puts Patients First With New Scheduling Platform

Linda Stevenson, the Ohio health system's Chief Digital Information Officer, says the AI-enabled platform helps patients and clinicians, a key benefit in a highly competitive market.

Fisher-Titus Medical Center sits right in the middle of a rural swath of northwestern Ohio, not far from Lake Erie. But they're less than two hours away from four major health systems - Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals to the east, ProMedica to the northwest, and Ohio State to the south.

That's why it's imperative that they take advantage of the latest AI tools, especially tech that can help patients easily schedule and access care.

"Rural healthcare is struggling - all of us are struggling," says Linda Stevenson, CHCIO, CDH-E, PMP. MBA, the Norwalk based hospital's Chief Digital Information Officer. "The bottom line is slim to none, and the only way we can survive at this point is to do more with less. … So we continue to look at how can we use automation to get speed of services, make it convenient for people to want to come here that maybe it's not convenient in other places."

"It is my job as a leader of the organization to make sure that we have the right technology to support our patients," she adds. "So they don't think, ‘I have to go to the Cleveland Clinic to get community care.' Now, there will always be specialties that we don't have given [that we are] a rural healthcare organization, and that they will always have relationships with some of these other large health systems because of that. But we still want to make it worth their while to come to your local organizations, see your local doctor that you know and love."

Addressing the Scheduling Logjam

To improve scheduling and patient communication, the health system, which consists of a 99-bed acute care hospital, skilled nursing facility, assisted living facility, home health center, and an employed primary and specialty care physician group, partnered with Luma Health to implement an enterprise-wide tech platform. The platform allows Fisher-Titus 70,000+ patients to schedule appointments with primary care and pediatric care providers and digestive health, surgery and urology specialists.

Like any rural healthcare organization, Fisher-Titus struggles to fill its workforce, whether it be clinicians or registration staff. Stevenson says the platform takes a lot of pressure off of overworked staff and eases friction between patient and hospital.

"AI is one way that we're going to solve some of our problems," she says. "Yes, it's an investment, but I've got to invest in something to improve our bottom line, improve our place in the world, really."

For instance, she says, ambulatory services staff were making an estimated 6,000 phone calls a month to iron out scheduling issues. The new platform eliminates the need to make those calls, saving thousands of hours per month and freeing up valuable staff time for other projects.

A More Seamless Patient Experience

Stevenson says Fisher-Titus, which is on the Oracle EHR platform, wanted tools that could integrate easily into the EHR while still being managed by her IT staff. As an example, she noted that the hospital was able to quickly pivot during a recent snowstorm to send out automated messages to patients about which services were still open and which were being closed due to the weather.

"Things shift very fast in rural healthcare," she says. "We needed that flexibility."

Linda Stevenson, Chief Digital Information Officer at Fisher-Titus Medical Center. Photo courtesy Fisher-Titus.

More importantly, she says, Fisher-Titus wanted capabilities that would appeal to its rural residents, who might have many healthcare options but really value the connection to the community hospital.

"Your patients are happier and you can get your schedules filled more quickly," she notes. "Let's use the wait list example. Patients can't get an appointment, but they get put on a wait list, and then automatic notifications go out and say OK, we can get you in tomorrow; we had a cancellation. That's great for physicians, keeps their RVs up, keeps their schedule filled, which is what they all want, and probably keeps your patient healthier if they're getting in in a more timely manner [for] treatment."

An intriguing tool on the platform enables what Stevenson calls "patient-contributed information." Patients can enter data, such as medications and symptoms, at home prior to the appointment, giving clinicians all the details they need and cutting down on waiting room and registration time. In addition, she says, the tool helps patients take more control over their own care.

Slow and Careful With AI

Stevenson says Fisher-Titus is taking a slow and careful approach to using AI, with the patient scheduling platform and revenue cycle management tools coming first.

"I think this is a good way to get started, a good way to get the organization used to AI in a safe way, in a helpful way," she says. "We're going to get wins reducing burden. We're going to get wins hopefully with the patient experience and then we'll start to see a little bit more trust into other clinical areas."

The biggest challenge is as expected: Change management, especially among clinicians who "like what they like." Rural doctors and nurses aren't any different than their urban counterparts in hewing to time-tested workflows and reacting with skepticism to any new technology.

But then again, with large health systems not that far away at all points of the compass already using AI, Stevenson is steadfast in wanting to keep up.

"Some of these tools are foundational at this point," she says. "I could see a day, if it's not here already, where a doctor says if you don't provide these things, I'm not going to join on your organization because I know my life will be way easier somewhere else."

"And it's going to be like that with the patients, too," she adds. "I'm not going to come to Fisher-Titus because I can't even self-schedule and I work all day. And how am I going to get an appointment when I don't have time to stop and make a phone call? I just want to go online at 9 at night as I get ready for bed and make my appointment. That is an expectation and I think it's the right one."