Success Stories

proven solutions for population health and integrated care management

Wellconnex program supports vision of proactive, integrated care
while delivering significant results

When Wellconnex’s founders developed the model at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the path forward was uncertain. Providing sharper focus to an institutional population health management strategy, while serving the organization’s larger goals for patient access to both primary and subspecialty care, was no easy task. The team met with many vendors who promised sophisticated operating systems and visualizations that would open a window for executives into the challenges they were facing. The problem was, their institution, like so many others, had invested so much in their electronic health record, that stacking new systems on top of that made little financial or logistical sense. What’s more, individual clinical teams only had capacity to be reactive, interacting with patients mostly at scheduled visits.

It quickly became clear that we needed to help the healthcare system leverage the power of their electronic health record to support the greater vision of proactive, integrated care they were seeking.

After designing and building solutions for more than 20 clinical programs—from primary care to several disease management programs—the model, and its resulting outcomes, came into focus. Our solutions helped deliver a better patient experience, improve health outcomes and add value to the Medicaid system—all while saving the health care system significant money. A peer-reviewed evaluation put numbers and further validation behind the impact of Wellconnex’s solutions.

Peer-reviewed Evaluation Shows Wellconnex Return on Investment

Following a two-year implementation of a model that combined technology solutions and interdisciplinary integrated care teams to improve care for youth with special health care needs, a peer-reviewed evaluation was published by JAMA Network Open in December 2019 showing significant results for patients and the health care system. The main findings revealed:

• Return on investment of up to $6 for every $1 invested in the program
• Reached more than 93,000 Medicaid-enrolled children
• 50 fewer hospital admissions each month
• 3,600 fewer bed days in a year

The President and CEO stated in a press release that the hospital “is committed to delivering the highest-quality care to address the pressing health needs of our most vulnerable children, and this intervention has played a significant role in that mission.”

client testimonials

“The proactive care management approach and tools changed how we run the diabetes center. Before we had thousands of patients and many different providers who referred to different specialists as needed, and we did not have a good communication system. Now we are organized into smaller teams with all of the specialty roles working together, our teams meet regularly, dashboards provide immediate access to data to quickly identify patient issues, and providers can readily see their patient populations and determine who needs extra attention.”

Physician, Diabetes Team Leader

“Our care management reports in the electronic health record have increased our clinical team efficiency. Before everything was paper-based. We passed around spreadsheet files and had to manually enter the medical record number on the spreadsheet to access records and contact patients. This was very cumbersome and inefficient and there were many errors. Now, everything is built into the electronic health record, we have patient lists, and we can easily open their charts without ever having to type in a medical record number.”

Manager, Primary Care

“I use these tools and approaches for capacity management, in order to open beds for new patients. We can look at our patients in many different ways: Medical complexity, intellectual disabilities, outpatient visits, service utilization, emergency department visits, and more. Before we only had admission data. This new information helps us figure out why patients are using different services and shows where we can open up resources.”

Nurse Practitioner, Adolescent

“It has been game changing on many levels. We are such a big institution, and there is a lot of information buried in the electronic health record. With these reports and analytics, we are able to understand the needs of each patient and meet them where they are. If we did not have this information, that patient experience would not be where it is now. It helps you be more proactive with care and follow up quickly. Otherwise, you are going through hundreds of charts to see trends and do outreach. You cannot deliver the same level of care without them.”

Nurse Manager, Care Management

“This program does an amazing job and provides a much-needed service for families who often feel the burden of being their child's parent, advocate, nurses, and scheduler all at once!”

Family, complex care management program

interested in exploring simple, effective solutions for your team?

contact us