Minimizing Administrative Tasks and Increasing Patient Engagement with the OP Patient Portal

As the leading pediatric healthcare provider in Lincoln, Nebraska, Complete Children’s Health is the region’s largest independently owned pediatric practice for all well, sick, specialty, and behavioral health pediatric needs. With four locations, 30 providers, expansive weekend and evening hours, and specialty asthma and behavioral health clinics, the practice needed a comprehensive Patient Portal to provide a way for parents and patients to access vital health information, communicate with providers, and actively prepare for upcoming appointments.

A Robust Portal Helps Practices Thrive

As with many pediatric practices, Complete Children’s Health needed the right Patient Portal to help their growing practice thrive. They found the perfect fit with OP. OP’s Patient Portal makes it possible for the practice’s parents and patients to engage with their own health data, a primary driver of patient satisfaction.

For providers, clinical and front office staff, the Portal helps streamline communications, reduces call volumes, and cuts down on requests for simple administrative tasks, such as health forms and immunization records. Time spent fulfilling medication refill requests and completing referrals has been dramatically reduced, improving operational efficiency. By empowering patients to access their records electronically, at their own convenience, the front office staff can now spend time improving the in-office experience and supporting clinical staff.

“As the largest regional provider of pediatric care, we needed a particularly robust Patient Portal that would help our patients access the information they need and dramatically improve their satisfaction with our practice,” said Stephen Lant, the IT Coordinator at Complete Children’s Health. “We develop our own surveys and often customize worksheets and forms for feedback that can be uploaded to the portal. This has helped us run our practice more smoothly and keep our patients top of mind.”

Seamless Practice Workflows, Better Patient Engagement

With a regional population of 310,000, Complete Children’s Health sees a large percentage of the area’s youth, who present with a wide variety of healthcare concerns. To meet the needs of its varied population, the practice must be as efficient as possible, from booking and scheduling appointments, to intake, documentation, and sharing results.

OP’s Patient Portal has helped Complete Children’s Health seamlessly collaborate and manage their practice across all its locations and specialties. “Active patients have access to, and control over, their own information,” said Lant. “It’s empowering. Any and all visit notes, documentation, and health education information are all pushed to the portal and available for them 24/7. Patients can also request documentation or electronically execute forms through the portal, said Lant. “This saves us a ton of time. For a practice as busy as ours, it’s a huge advantage.”

All the providers at Complete Children’s Health love using the portal. The pediatricians enjoy the ease of communicating with patients and their families, while the behavioral health practitioners appreciate the granular privacy settings. “They feel good knowing that they can mark visits as restricted or clinical staff only,” said Lant. These detailed features help them ensure that the patient’s safety and privacy remain protected.

Exceeding Patient Expectations

Complete Children’s Health is constantly seeking ways to innovate and improve on its patient experience. To the whole team, technology should help support their efforts to provide ever higher levels of healthcare delivery and patient engagement.

The practice looks to make regular updates to support the younger generation’s digital appetite. “Young parents in the area are looking for new ways to communicate with us,” noted Lant. “This demographic wants to reach us in a new and different way. We needed a tech-enabled avenue to communicate with our patients.” With the Portal, health information and access to providers is at their fingertips. Parents can complete health maintenance surveys prior to the appointment, which is a big value-add for both the practice and its time-strapped patients. They can also request a prescription refill, schedule appointments, message providers, and view lab results all in the palm of their hand.

Complete Children’s Health will continue to innovate to provide patients and their families with newer, better, and more convenient ways to interact with the practice. The practice prides itself on providing an unparalleled patient experience and OP‘s Patient Portal is a key component of doing so. According to Lant, the bottom line is: “There is no way we could function without it. For our practice, it’s a very powerful tool.”