How Bridge Patient Portal Can Help You Meet Patient Needs During COVID-19

Bridge Patient Portal is an important part of how our clients communicate with their patients. At Bridge, we think its important to share ways that Bridge Patient Portal can be used to help our clients meet their patients’ needs during this challenging time.

The Bridge team is available to help with any of the below items, AT NO COST, as part of our commitment to providing our clients the highest level of support in these situations.

In-Portal Alerts

Throughout Bridge, clients are able to place an “Alert Message” (see the images below) to help educate patients on any changes taking place with a client.

Homepage Alert Message:

 

Appointments Alert Message:

 

Messages Alert Message:

 

There is also a “Custom Widget” which can be placed on the portal home page to provide detailed information, such as links to external resources (i.e. CDC), symptom information, visit/scheduling protocol, etc.

 

Mass Messaging (SMS & Email)

In the Bridge admin panel, clients can filter patients by many different criteria (i.e. age, provider, active portal account, etc.) then type in a message to be sent to all patients meeting the filter criteria. The message can be sent in an SMS or Email format.

Automated Pre/Post Visit Messages

Using the Bridge admin panel, clients can create automated email notifications to be sent before and/or after a certain appointment type. This could be used, for example, to educate patients on a new visit policy.

Telemedicine

Bridge is committed to fully developing its telemedicine solution in 2020. This has been many years in the making as the Bridge team has carefully watched the telemedicine market for trends, new innovations, and standout vendors. We will be working closely with our clients in the coming months to evaluate the best course of action for our telemedicine solution and explore partnerships with industry-leading vendors.

In the meantime, there are many features in Bridge to help our clients facilitate telemedicine encounters and online communication with their patients.

1. Secure Patient-Provider Messaging – Bridge supports secure messaging between patients and providers or delegated to a provider’s team. Interface permitting, messages can be received and replied to in the provider’s EHR. Many questions can be answered in this way and for providers using patient-provider messaging already, this is the most commonly used feature in the portal. Educating patients that this is a reliable way to communicate with the provider for non-emergent questions, especially defining the protocol for when a message should be sent to a provider. This protocol can be shared with the patient in the messaging feature, using the “Alert Message” feature.
2. Telemedicine Appointment Scheduling – Bridge offers appointment requests and self-scheduling functionality. Depending on the telemedicine program of a particular client, different options are available for helping patients schedule a telemedicine appointment. In first place, a telemedicine appointment type can be created, which would then allow better organization of provider schedules. If self-scheduling is already in use, a protocol that manages the times and providers that a telemedicine appointment can be scheduled can be created in Bridge. Again, using the “Alert Message” feature, clients can educate their patients on how to schedule a telemedicine appointment.
3. Facilitating Video Conferencing – Once an appointment is scheduled a message can be sent to the patient with a link to the video conference. It’s important that whichever video conferencing solution is used, that it meets HIPAA requirements. (Improving this functionality is where Bridge will be investing most of its efforts in 2020)

DISCLAIMER: Client environments and the capabilities of their environments can vary. Some functionality may not be available in certain environments. Please speak with a Bridge client manager to learn more.