Ascension has developed and scaled a digital outreach campaign that thousands of patients have opted into, prompting them to schedule annual wellness visits. The program and its practical applications are featured in a new case study published in NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery.
“Annual wellness visits can better connect clinicians to each patient’s health needs and identify opportunities for preventive care,” said Thomas Aloia, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer, Ascension. “This work demonstrates how thoughtful use of behavioral science and digital technology can make it easier for patients to take that next step while supporting care teams with a more scalable approach to outreach.”
Ascension began testing the campaign in September 2022 at a small number of primary care practices. Patient, clinician, and operational feedback helped the team refine the language, coordinate outreach with appointment availability, and ensure contact centers could support increased scheduling demand before the program expanded.
From September 2022 through September 2024, the campaign was triggered 282,602 times and reached 179,711 unique patients across 12 states. It resulted in 73,253 needed preventative care appointments scheduled within 14 days of initial outreach, representing a 25.9% scheduling rate. This was approximately five times the rate achieved through previous manual telephone outreach.
“This program absolutely strengthens the patient-provider relationship,” said Aaron Shoemaker, MD, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Ambulatory, Ascension. “By making outreach clear, personal, and easier to act on, this campaign helped more patients take advantage of that opportunity.”
Insights from the campaign led Ascension to further refine its messaging, improve coordination across clinical and operational teams, and address broader opportunities involving electronic consent and self-scheduling.
Working with legal and compliance teams, Ascension also developed an electronic consent process that allowed patients to opt-in to digital communications through email or text. The process enabled the campaign to reach an additional 21,429 patients over 13 months.
“These results show the value of what we are focused on everyday at Ascension, listening to patients and care teams and continuously refining the approach that has an impact on the health of communities,” said Mitesh Patel, MD, MBA, Vice President and Chief Clinical Transformation Officer, Ascension. “By pairing personalized outreach with the right operational support, we developed a patient-centric, compliant and scalable way to help more patients connect with important preventive care.”
Read the full case study and learn about its practical applications in NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery: https://catalyst.nejm.org/stoken/default+domain/CW9WTIGHVHXXGMANAGVK/full?redirectUri=/doi/full/10.1056/CAT.25.0346
