With Return-To-Work Solution, Paladina Health Helps Employers Get Back To Business

Salesforce customer, Paladina Health Chief Information Officer Sampath Narayanan wrote this article.

Businesses are welcoming employees back and implementing new ways to keep people healthy. Daily screenings and health monitoring will become the norm. Reconfigured workspaces and communal areas will facilitate social distancing and slow the spread of COVID-19. And better communications will ensure everyone feels safe and supported in the new environment. However, to do all this, employers face complicated challenges in unknown territory.

I serve as Chief Information Officer for Paladina Health. Recently, we developed an innovative return-to-work solution for many of our clients.

Paladina Health provides employer-sponsored healthcare. With over 120 clinics and 180 providers, we deliver comprehensive primary care services to our clients, including more than 140 employers and their 180,000 members across 22 states. As clients started asking for our support, we were able to use our existing healthcare platform to develop a ground-up return-to-work solution in less than three weeks. This is how we did it.

Ground-up return-to-work solution

Creating a foundation for return-to-work readiness

Prior to the pandemic, we had integrated Salesforce Health Cloud with our electronic medical records (EMR) system. As a result, our care teams have easy access to clinical and nonclinical patient data. This includes current health conditions and medications, appointment history, and communication preferences.  We had developed a cloud-based data warehouse on Snowflake, hosted on the Amazon web cloud, that aggregates employee-specific data from a variety of vendors, partners, and systems to build a comprehensive healthcare data warehouse. We integrated Tableau data visualization software with the data warehouse to provide analytics dashboards with drill-through capabilities.

With this foundation of systems and integrations in place, we began to design and develop a comprehensive return-to-work solution.

Planning return-to-work journeys

We extended Health Cloud’s architecture to categorize employees as case statuses. Then, we developed a new workflow logic that determines employee status and logical next steps as they prepare to return to work. We set up new outreach work queues for our medical assistants and member services call center agents to contact employees to provide guidance and schedule follow-up appointments.

Driving employee engagement

We used out-of-the-box Marketing Cloud functionality to connect with employees via email and text messages. Today we send daily self-assessment reminders, educate employees on self-service tools, and facilitate consultation and monitoring appointments.

Sending health screening surveys

Health Cloud includes the SurveyMonkey managed package, which allows us to quickly create COVID-19 screening questions and deliver the survey to employees through email, text, or through a medical assistant. Based on the screening results, we then route the employee case to the appropriate next step using workflow logic built into the system.

Making the most of electronic medical records (EMR)

Providers capture clinical notes in our EMR system during consultations and ongoing monitoring visits. They can order labs, receive lab results, and order electronic prescriptions using built-in integrations to labs and pharmacies. We detect provider visits in real time and move the employee to the next appropriate step in the return-to-work journey.

Offering online health portals and mobile apps

Employees can check for provider availability, create an appointment, and jump on a video call with the provider from the comfort of their home, using our web portal and mobile app.

Visualizing your data

The integrated Tableau software shows visualized data to our clients, administrators, and providers. This real-time information helps them manage employees at various stages of the return-to-work journey.

Ready to take on the future

At Paladina Health, we take pride in navigating complex healthcare challenges – including COVID-19 – on behalf of our clients so they can focus on running their business.

That’s why Salesforce’s flexible workflows, automation, and analytics capabilities continue to meet our needs as we support our customers, and everyone adapts to the many challenges posed by the pandemic. 

To learn more, view the webinar How Providers Can Leverage Technology to Accelerate Business Recovery.