Liderman Duin, FounderNavi transforms the care journey for the patient while bringing the attention back to the patient’s health condition. Having a constant dialogue with the caregiver results in improved care outcomes, which is exactly what patient engagement aims to achieve.
Patient engagement is a crucial component in the care continuum today. Realizing this, care providers are increasingly looking to engage with patients on their health conditions, circumstances, health needs, and personal values and preferences. On an equal footing, patients are also increasingly participating in their healthcare and wish to communicate more about their health conditions to caregivers. Traditionally, patient portals are being used to bridge this gap between patients and caregivers and help them exchange information on health status, medication compliance, appointment scheduling, and more. However, these portals are not patient engagement solutions, and they lack the ability to connect to the patient wherever they are, at any convenient time, and in whatever form they like. Also, with poor user experience, these systems are often cumbersome to manage, making it tedious for both patients and caregivers.
Liderman Duin, the Founder of Bluepoint2, had firsthand experience of these drawbacks during his career as a healthcare consultant. The reality finally struck him when his father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer. Duin recalls how his father-in-law had to carry numerous files each time he had an appointment with the caregiver. The anxiety and frustration that accompanied this process adversely affected his overall care experience. Having a two-decade-long career in the healthcare sector and versatile experience in international business development, Duin decided to change this scenario. He bootstrapped Bluepoint2 to automate the process of scheduling medical appointments, streamlining communication between caregivers and patients, and ultimately improving patient health in a smarter and meaningful way.
Minimizing Patient No-Shows
Bluepoint2’s flagship product, Navi, helps patients navigate their medical appointments. Navi automates the registration process by allowing patients to fill out their clinical and demographic information as well as sign the consent forms—all before their medical appointment.
At the heart of our solution, we focus on the patient. We keep this in mind every time we build anything new
“By enabling caregivers to engage with their patients proactively, Navi not only improves the efficiency of the doctor’s office but also makes the visit less cumbersome for the patient. It is a win-win situation,” says Duin. It addresses another major issue in the care continuum: patient no-shows. There are several instances where patients tend to miss their scheduled appointment with the caregiver. Surprisingly, the cancellation rate of medical appointments due to patients not showing up is around 5 to 18 percent in the U.S. Beyond being detrimental to patient health, these cancellations disrupt hospital schedules and leave healthcare providers with a significant waste of resources and revenue loss. About 41 percent of these cancellations are due to reasons such as the patient not being fit for the appointment, completely forgetting about it, showing up at the wrong location, financial problems, or even limitation of transportation. The impact deepens as cancellations lead to make-shift approaches to scheduling and rescheduling patients.
To minimize no shows, Navi sends an alert to the patient about their appointment, communicates what is expected of them, and shares relevant information regarding their treatment before and after the appointment. The Bluepoint2 team had noticed that most healthcare solutions in the market were app-based, and patients frequently abandoned the apps after one visit. To overcome this challenge, Navi is designed as a web-based solution that collects the patient’s personal and medical information such as medications and allergies, along with the medical history, from EHRs as well as registration systems. Navi then presents the information to the patient, giving them the ability to update any information if required. Navi works as an automated, multidirectional communication platform between the doctor who has all the patient information, the hospital that needs that same information, and the patient who needs to verify it and update it.
Patients receive a text message with the link to review their data and view their upcoming appointments. At the same time, the platform assists them throughout the cycle, whether it’s reminding them to start fasting, guiding them with GPS to the right location, educating them with videos and content about the appointment, processing their insurance card information, or even enabling mobile payment. The entire information is synchronized with the patient’s chart on the platform.
"Navi not only improves the efficiency of the doctor’s office but also makes the visit less cumbersome for the patient. It is a win-win situation"
Once the patient has updated the information, the care team reviews the information and updates it as discrete or structured data into the EHR. The platform has built-in interoperability with EHRs using APIs, making it easy to access and feed data into the system. “It is fundamental for us to know the client’s workflows, as they may have multiple software to collect patient data. We spend time understanding these sources and their capabilities to work with them,” says Duin. After identifying the client’s needs, Bluepoint2 customizes its platform to address their end goals specifically. The company also makes sure that the data is HIPAA compliant and secured within the hospital and data center walls. “Every healthcare setting has a level of uniqueness and complexity to their business; we ensure that each of their needs is addressed before we implement our solution and give them the desired results.”
A ‘Simple’ Remedy to Complex Problems
To illustrate the effectiveness of their solution in terms of patient engagement and communication, Duin cites the customer success story of Concentra, a large occupational health provider. Concentra faced challenges in manually managing the stack of medical forms containing patient’s medical and demographic data from over 500 centers across the nation. Bluepoint2 was able to successfully automate the process of collecting and managing the forms across Concentra’s medical centers. As all the forms were automated, Concentra was able to seamlessly exchange patient data between their medical centers and their clients, allowing them to better manage patient health.
The software’s seamless communication capabilities are ascribed to Duin and his team, who are passionate and enthusiastic about the future of healthcare. Keeping up with this spirit, the Bluepoint2 team believes in finding a ‘simple’ approach to solve today’s healthcare problems. Duin sums it, “We focus on the patient, at the heart of our solution. We keep this in mind every time we build something new. Rather than adding complicated features and functionalities, we want to make our platform simple and intuitive.”
