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The new Coronavirus (COVID-19) is putting immense pressure on healthcare systems around the world. With this rapidly evolving situation, it’s important to understand how this will impact your practice — and how you can keep operations afloat and continue to deliver great care.
Here are some examples of how Klara helps medical practices to strengthen their operations, enable remote care, and guarantee outstanding patient communication in these times of crisis:
- Give concerned patients an easy way to contact your practice via text without overloading phone lines. The CDC is strongly advising patients to call the doctor before coming in, which results in an increased strain on phone lines and staff. Offering patients the ability to text your practice (via our „press-1-to-text phone tree greeting, our web messenger, voicemail transcription, and the general ability to securely text with your practice via Klara) can give your patients an easier way to get in touch with you, without overloading phone lines.
- Enable telemedicine for your patients: video, messaging (store&forward), and remote monitoring. The CDC is also encouraging patients and providers to use telemedicine wherever possible. Via Klara you can easily start HIPAA compliant video consultations to continue providing care to patients, even remotely. And even more conveniently, your patients can securely text or send photos of their conditions, and stay in touch with your staff for the appropriate treatment or instructions for care. You can also have Klara Assistant follow-up with patients automatically via customized messaging sequences for different patient types.
- Prepare patients with pre-visit screenings and instructions. Klara allows your practice to send (automated) pre-visit instructions, including any Coronavirus-specific precautions that patients should take, before coming into your office. You can also send pre-appointment screening surveys and provide information on any temporary changes to your cancellation policies.
- Keep your patient base informed with effective mass SMS. You can send out bulk messages to groups of patients to make announcements about how your practice is responding to the outbreak. Klara makes it easy to provide updates to your patients enmasse. You can easily inform patients of office closures, changes to their appointments, or any other necessary updates in a matter of seconds.
- Keep your practice running, even if some staff has to work remotely. In the event that administrative staff members have to work remotely due to Coronavirus, you can keep your practice up and running with Klara. Klara is cloud-based and can be accessed from a desktop or mobile device anywhere you have an internet connection. Team collaboration and patient communication doesn’t have to stop just because of precautions your office might have to take.
- Reach out to at-risk patients - and confirm the messages are read. The CDC also recommends that outpatient facilities “consider reaching out to patients who may be a higher risk of COVID-19-related complications” (for example: elderly, those with medical comorbidities, and pregnant women) to ensure adherence to current medications and therapeutic regimens and confirm they have sufficient medication refills. Klara’s read receipts document if a message has been received and read by a patient - to give you the confidence you need.
- Let Klara automatically reschedule missed appointments. If patients are worried about their health, or have to self-quarantine, that may result in missed appointments. Klara automates the rescheduling process by sending out a message to no-shows on your behalf, giving patients other options to schedule, so your practice can keep running smoothly.
- Create templated messages to streamline Coronavirus FAQs. Klara allows users to build their own message templates, which can be sent out by any member of the team. In times of crisis, it’s important that everyone stays on message. Templates ensure that your staff consistently delivers the right information.
- Keep in touch with pharmacies. Your practice can easily communicate with pharmacies by looping them in to Klara to ensure that your patients are getting quality care, even in the most serious of circumstances.
These are just a few of the ways that Klara can help you and your practice prepare and give the best you can in times of this crisis. So you can continue to deliver great care and keep you and your patients safe.
