How Data Analytics Helped Flag Pediatric Care Gaps During COVID-19

August 05, 2021 - As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world in 2020, hospitals and providers had to determine a course of action to continue administering quality care to their patients. At Ann & Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital, data analytics indicated a decline in well-child and vaccination rates beginning in March of 2020.

To address COVID-19 concerns within Lurie Children’s clinically integrated network, Senior Vice President, Chief Integration and Business Development Officer Scott Wilkerson and Dr. Michelle Macy organized a COVID-19 weekly call.

Through the weekly calls with physicians, it became clear that there was a substantial decline in patients wanting to come to the office. Wilkerson said the hospital then started pulling data using Arcadia Analytics to verify what they were hearing in the calls. These analytic tools were essential in creating a response plan. 

“If you don't have the analytics to show where you're at, you may not understand what's happening out there in the market. We were able to use the analytics to show there's been a big decrease, and then we quickly put together a response plan, including communication, radio ads, other types of communication channels, to respond to that,” Wilkerson told HealthITAnalytics.

The data showed that during the first eight weeks of the pandemic shutdown, Lurie Children’s saw a significant drop in well-child exams with children coming in at about half the rate they normally would. The decrease in well-child visits also indicated to the hospital that children were missing out on important vaccinations as they are typically delivered during these well-child visits.

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To immediately address the problem, the hospital put in place telemedicine capabilities for doctors to conduct some parts of the well-child exams remotely. However, doctors were still unable to provide vaccinations for children if they were not physically coming into the office.

In an effort to bring children back into the office, Lurie Children’s conducted an outreach campaign via text message platform to communicate with families and encourage the return of well-child visits.

“What's really great about the platform is, it allowed for them [families] to immediately contact the practice. So our independent practices, we have about 75 different entities that we're working with. And we're able to do that handoff right back to the practice so those families can call and schedule those visits or get those vaccinations scheduled quickly,” Wilkerson said.

In addition to the outreach campaign, the hospital had to ensure families that it was safe to bring their children into the office. The hospital worked to establish new safety protocols to encourage families to return for well-child visits. These practices included having patients wait in cars rather than the waiting room and the use of protective equipment such as masks.

“There was a lot of hesitancy on the part of the families to come into offices and be out of the house. And with all the uncertainty we had, and considering how quickly and easily the virus is transmissible, the pediatric practices were really great about creating new workflows and separating different times of day or groups of patients,” Macy said.

READ MORE: Using Data Analytics to Enhance Patient Engagement, Outreach

As more children begin to return to the office for wellness visits, Wilkerson said that communicating with patients was the key to the hospital’s success. Additionally, pursuing all different channels of communication has proven essential. Whether it was through text message, email, radio ads, or webinars, the hospital leveraged almost every channel available according to Wilkerson.

“We were really capitalizing on various forms of media delivery that we probably hadn't done before because people react in different ways,” Wilkerson said.

Communicating with patients also included providing accurate information as experts learned more about COVID-19. According to Wilkerson and Macy, this became a strong collaborative project among different experts within the clinically integrated network.

“We realized an opportunity to help bring the expertise that folks in our infectious disease group have had out to the community providers so, that they were able to then be sifting through all the information that was coming out on the internet and the news, as well as from journals and be really responsive to the questions that were coming in from parents who were calling into their offices,” Macy said.

Wilkerson explained that physicians and those who work in business and quality were able to all work together to provide support in different ways. Those in business advised how to apply for paycheck protection loans to keep businesses open to see patients.

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Those in quality gave tips on how to do testing and advised which types of equipment were best suited for different situations. Additionally, the hospital had infection disease specialists and ICU doctors on call.

“We feel like we reached a new level of teamwork. Physicians, business people, quality folks, all working together to respond to this situation. It ended up really delivering high value to our doctors who were then able to focus on patient care and not have to do all that research and not have to pull patient lists for reminder calls, et cetera. We were doing the work for them,” Wilkerson said.

Through the Lurie Children’s clinically integrated network, the hospital was able to collect and analyze data to perform services that best served their patients, ensuring a high quality of care.

“We learned so much, so quickly, and needed to adapt to all the circumstances with COVID. As we go into this Delta variant situation, and we start to be able to hopefully get FDA approval for kids younger than 12, we're going to be well-positioned to keep track of those data and be responsive to the needs of our group,” Macy concluded.