Healthcare communications company Artera announced more than a dozen new partnerships to bring its streamlined patient communications solution to federally qualified health centers across the U.S., including Bedford-Stuyvesant Family Health Center in New York and Moses Lake Community Health Center in Wisconsin.
More than a fourth of Artera’s business partnerships are FQHCs, according to the company.
Founder and CEO Guillaume de Zwirek said Artera’s solution streamlines patient communications by sending messages directly from their clinician’s phone number. The solution can also coordinate notifications from multiple platforms and streamline them so patients receive the most relevant notifications.
“Basic communication is that your doctor should be a saved contact in your address book,” de Zwirek said. “You should be able to text them or call them about anything. You should get a response within three minutes. And we should be automating all the low value work so that we can provide leverage to staff so if you want to know what the address is, that should be automated."
De Zwirek said the solution is especially suited to community clinics, which serve some of the country’s most underserved patients.
The communications tool can also help patients in a given area access local resources, such as identifying patients who could qualify for a local food benefits program, or coordinating winter coat distribution for patients in cold months.
Artera also offers template models to health centers to roll out vaccination campaigns or Medicaid redetermination information materials.
“We also give them templates that have worked for other FQHCs so they don't have to reinvent the wheel,” de Zwirek said.
Not only does Artera communicate in 109 languages, which benefits patients who speak English as a second language, but its effective patient communication increases attendance at visits. FQHCs can take on more patients, and increase their bottom line, if attendance improves, de Zwirek said.
The solution allows a patient to directly message their care team with a simple interface for clinical staff to respond. It can also push alerts from other vendors the clinic may use, like a billing service or a prescription service.
“One of the biggest problems … [is] communication overload, right? … Someone's going to remind you of your appointment, you're going to get referred to a pharmacy … you might have to join a telehealth visit,” de Zwirek said. “Every single one of those apps will need to communicate with you. They're going to either email you, call you, text you. That is horrible. It's horrible for the patient. It's horrible for the hospital. It's horrible for the brand loyalty.”
Artera now supports more than 800 providers nationwide, including more than 250 FQHCs.
"Artera has become a natural extension of our team and work. Artera’s reliable patient communications platform and its ability to quickly tailor messaging to our patient population has not only elevated our patient experience with seamless, digital patient communications but it’s also helped our team to deliver the personalized care our patients deserve,” said Vanessa Huerta, associate director of operations at Livingston Community Health.