As a tribal health center that provides care to tribal members and the public in more than 30 communities, Feather River Tribal Health, Inc. serves a large population with diverse needs.

Over the years, as they annually approached reporting GPRA measures, their only performance insights came from a quarterly RPMS dashboard. Mike Harris, Chief Information Officer at Feather River Tribal Health, Inc., noted, “We had no visibility when we were reporting, outside of our best guesses.”

However, Harris and his team wanted more insights and data to drive better performance. “That’s always been kind of a dream of ours. To have visibility into how we’re performing for the GPRA measures,” Harris emphasized.

Additionally, when fires and floods ravaged the Oroville community in 2017, the Feather River team had little knowledge on how their patients may have been affected.

To increase visibility into their performance and patient needs, Feather River turned to NextGen Healthcare.

Almost immediately, NextGen Population Health Solutions made a huge difference for their operations. Since implementation, the team has been able to focus on specific measures and better understand how they can provide outreach to meet their reporting targets.

The ease of use of Population Health allows team members across the organization to be better informed on patient information and provide the highest quality care.

Better information has allowed them to curate targeted events and integrate more solutions that bolster their efforts.

Engaging the community

With informed knowledge of specific measures, the outreach team at Feather River creates measures-based awareness tables at their Oroville, Yuba City, and Wellness Center locations every month.

Their events in the community also became more personalized to patients thanks to accessible data. During their spring harm reduction event, the team made passports for patients to gather stamps around the event. Each stamp corresponded to a GPRA measure. With Population Health at their fingertips, staff were able to cater each check-in point to the patient.

“They would go and check-in and our staff would look up with Pop. Health, and say, ‘Oh, hey, you’re due for X, Y, and Z,’ and then would give them what they need,” Harris explained.

The event itself offered cervical cancer screenings through their mobile medical unit, as well as flu shots and immunizations. Attendees could also take part in educational events offered by the diabetic management and behavioral health teams.

Harris praised the success of the event, saying, “I believe there were probably several thousand that had come through the course of the day. So these events have been very, very popular. This is something new that we’ve never done. We’ve done a health fair in the past, but never coordinated around specific measures, awareness, or education for the patients regarding their measures— things that they’re due for, and speaking with the staff. That I feel was well received among the community members.”

Integration with impact

Events like these also have a positive effect on patient engagement at Feather River. Coupled with the implementation of NextGen Patient Engage powered by Luma, Feather River has seen over a 20% boost in patient engagement.

Insights from Population Health have informed targeted use of the tool. By running reports to identify individuals who are due for screenings, they can then send them messages through Luma and remind them to schedule an appointment.

Similarly, if patients cancel an appointment, Feather River uses Luma to automatically send a reminder message to reschedule. This is more efficient for staff who no longer need to follow up over the phone or via mail, and it also minimizes overall missed appointments. Additionally, Luma improves no-show rates.

“Specifically for our behavioral health providers, we went from a double-digit no-show rate down to a single-digit no-show rate. There was one specifically where it was like 15% no show, and now it’s 9%,” Harris explained

Looking ahead

As the Feather River team looks ahead, they plan to roll out NextGen® Self-Scheduling and NextGen® Waitlist, both powered by Luma, to further expand their patient engagement efforts.

And while the Feather River community has fortunately not experienced any recent natural disasters that prompted an emergency response, the team feels better prepared and equipped for a data-driven response.

“We were talking about what our response would have been like if we had a tool like Population Health... NextGen’s [Healthcare] made it way easier for us to find our patients and look at our patients compared to where we were with RPMS,” said Harris.

Especially as a tribal organization in a rural area, the Feather River team recognizes the importance of being able to support patients who live in areas with minimal cell service over 45 minutes away from the nearest clinic.

“I see that Population Health is a tool not just for patient health, but for disaster preparedness, emergency preparedness, both big and small...Being able to know where your patients are is invaluable,” Harris emphasized.

Proof in the numbers

Collectively, population health initiatives and patient engagement have helped Feather River deliver positive, data-driven outcomes and improve their GPRA performance. Within the first year of implementing NextGen Population Health Solutions, Feather River has noted: