Selected Podcast
Ep. 9: Loyalty is the New Currency
Roxanna Gapstur and her guest Megan Lecas discuss how WellSpan plans to attract and retain new patients.
Featuring:
Megan Lecas | Roxanna Gapstur, PhD, RN
Megan Lecas is the Vice President, Women & Children Service Line, WellSpan Health. Transcription:
Michael Carrese (Host): Welcome to Inspiring Health, a series of conversations with Roxanna Gapstur and other WellSpan leaders about WellSpan 2025. I'm Michael Carrese, and Roxanna what are we going to be talking about today?
Roxanna Gapstur Ph.D., R.N. (Guest): Today we’re going to be talking about loyal patients, which is the new currency in healthcare, and we’ll explore how we create loyalty among both our current patients and how we attract new customers.
Host: And who’s your guest to help us with that?
Roxanna: Today our guest is Megan Lecas. She’s the vice president for women and children’s service line here at WellSpan.
Host: So you lead with loyal patients being the new currency, which is a pretty bold statement. What does that mean for WellSpan?
Roxanna: It means out number one goal over the next five years must be to attract loyal patients. Our industry is shifting from fee for service to value based reimbursement, something we’ve discussed in previous podcasts. Thriving in a value based environment requires that we need to manage populations of patients. It’s easier to manage those populations when they're loyal to receiving their care at WellSpan. So we need to build our bank of loyal patients. Grow and leverage our coordinated network of care to manage the healthcare needs of the whole population. So organizations that achieve optimal scale while managing the health of populations will thrive in the future.
Host: So let’s start breaking this down a little bit. So loyal patients. How is WellSpan approaching that?
Roxanna: The best way to frame this up is considering your own favorite brands. What keeps you coming back? I think about some of the brands I'm loyal too. Brands like Amazon, Apple, Google. When we think about consuming healthcare, we need to remember our value proposition. Providing the very best quality, being easy to use at an affordable cost. We need to provide high value care to attract and retain loyal patients.
Host: Yeah. We talked a lot about value proposition, WellSpan’s value proposition in a previous show.
Roxanna: Absolutely we did. We talked about how the affordability equation plays into that. We also explored our journey to high reliability when we had Dr. MaryEllen Pfeiffer with us. We know our medical group quality metrics and our hospital quality scores are among the best in central Pennsylvania and the entire country. So retaining loyal patients centers largely on how we develop that relationship and create that trust.
Host: What about ease of use? How easy do you think it is for consumers to use WellSpan services?
Roxanna: Well, our goal is to create those loyal patients by providing new ways to access our services in our five county footprint. We have over 220 locations and eight hospitals, but we also need to leverage technology to reimagine how we interact with patients. So MyWellSpan is now a really important portal through which we engage with over 200,000 active patients. People can schedule appointments, exchange messages with their physician or APC, fill prescriptions, and share test results. We’ve also launched online urgent care which is available 24/7 for all of our employees and patients. Now when it comes to women’s services, there's two new ways we’re creating value. One is MadelineRX, an online option for birth control prescriptions which also creates a connection to our WellSpan OBGYN services. The other is BabyScripts. It provides incredible value to our patients and it’s why Megan is here with us today.
Host: Right, Megan, welcome aboard. I'm glad to have you with us. I have to say that Roxanna’s a big fan of BabyScripts because I think this is the third time I've heard her talk about it in the podcast series. How does that work?
Megan Lecas (Guest): BabyScripts is a virtual platform. It’s prescribed to expectant moms at the beginning of their pregnancy. A mobile app delivers a custom content to patients from their OB team on a weekly basis. Patients simply need to download the app from the app store. Information which is gestational age specific is delivered to patients. They can also easily access specific prenatal and post-partum information when they want or need it. BabyScripts can also illustrate the growth of the baby comparing the baby to easily visualized objects such as your baby’s as big as a peanut or as large as a grapefruit as well as providing expectant moms with common information about their pregnancy at a given point in time. So how does it work? Aside from the informational content, the BabyScripts app supports the pregnancy in a few additional ways. The list keeps growing as healthcare systems such as WellSpan are working with BabyScripts.
Host: So Megan, what are some specific ways that WellSpan’s using BabyScripts?
Megan: So I'm going to illustrate two ways in which we at WellSpan are using BabyScripts. One way is optimization. This means that mom can reduce the number of visits from 14 to 9. Optimized patients receive a Bluetooth enabled blood pressure cuff. Instead of a visit, the patient simply submits their blood pressure, their weight, and answers a few questions through their app which communicates with EPIC and then their WellSpan provider. If the patient’s clinical information falls outside of acceptable ranges, the patient is contact by their obstetrician for further assessment. Patients can take and submit their blood pressure as frequently as they wish. This providers patients with added comfort. Plus on a few occasions it has helped identify patients with high blood pressure who needed an intermediate intervention. What we’ve typically seen is at the beginning of pregnancy, these new moms are taking their blood pressure more frequently. As they advance in their care, the frequency trails off.
A second way that we’ve began using BabyScripts is in collaboration with a few insurances. We use BabyScripts to screen for social determinants for health. In partnership with the WellSpan care management team, we refer patients for needed services. For instance, if an obstetrical patient does not have access to nutritious food, we will link that patient with one of our community resources to ensure that they receive nutritious food because that’s important for both mom and baby.
Host: So Megan, how do you think BabyScripts impacts customer loyalty?
Megan: I think there’s three areas: ease of use, quality of care, and affordability. Let’s start with ease of use. We all rely on our phones to stay connected. We rely on technology to help us navigate, shop, work, track our exercise and our weight. BabyScripts is a consumer centric solution which conveniently supports pregnancy in a similar manner as we conduct the rest of our lives. The second area is quality of care. The convenience of BabyScripts helps expectant moms have accurate immediately available information about their pregnancy. If they have a question about an over the counter medication, a food choice, or health concerns, they can simply query the app. Historically patients needed to refer to books or handouts, etcetera. If it wasn’t on their person, then they didn’t have access to the information that they needed to answer their question which then required a phone call to the obstetrician’s office or sometimes they even relied on the inaccurate advice of family members. I personally know of several situations where an expecting mom was identified as having blood pressure through the in-home blood pressure monitoring. We are also monitoring weight, which can be a symptom of poor nutrition or preeclampsia. Time to treatment makes such an important difference in the health of both mom and baby.
The last area is affordability. I think of affordability in several ways: through the lens of the patient, the community, and the healthcare system. Reducing unnecessary appointments results in our patients have less time away from work, reducing their childcare costs, and spending less on travel. Our community then has access to more appointments for those who need an in-person visit. Our organization benefits because we’re able to hire the appropriate number of physicians, advanced practice clinicians, and staff especially as there's such a physician and advanced practice clinician shortage. Last year appropriated a thousand visits because of BabyScripts.
Host: Roxanna talked before about WellSpan as a brand. How do you think BabyScripts impacts WellSpan’s brand?
Megan: When we win with women, we win with the entire family. 74% of women said that they will return to the healthcare system where they delivered their babies. To your earlier point, loyal patients are the new healthcare currency. This is important because 35% of women who deliver at WellSpan are new to the system. This speaks to your comments about attracting new patients. Creating an appealing front door during childbearing years is important to our future. Products like BabyScripts, Madeline, and Baby Bump plus a highly engaged and satisfied care team supports and enhances our brand. Today’s women are more educated and aware. We must stand out for all of the right reasons.
Host: Roxanna, how is WellSpan thinking about the future of customer loyalty?
Roxanna: BabyScripts is just a great example of where we need to go in the future. We think about value. The value of replacing up to four prenatal visits allows women to spend more time at work or home and it also allows WellSpan to see patients who are at higher risk and need to be in the clinic. Our 2025 vision, a trusted partner reimagining healthcare Inspiring Health couldn’t be more aligned with an app like BabyScripts. This really hits on our reimagining healthcare focus.
Host: Right. So as we wrap up, how can WellSpan employees impact customer loyalty? Megan, why don’t you go first?
Megan: One novel way that the women’s and children’s service line is working with our staff through our WellSpan clinical council. The representatives on this council include in inpatient nursing leaders from all WellSpan hospitals. One of the committees on the council is a consumerism committee, and it is charged with speaking to patients about their experience and listening for ideas. The council also scours media and makes suggestions that we consider for implementation. Examples include our NICU camera system—Angel Eyes. It provides patients and others the ability to log into the camera system to see the baby at any time. We’re in the process of implementing CertaScan. This is a technology that captures the baby’s footprint where it’s copied and given as a keepsake. The footprint is stored in EPIC and the CertaScan software system can be retrieved if for some reason we need the footprint throughout the life of this person. I have found that there's pride and personal commitment when our teams are identifying solutions and working collectively to implement.
One of my favorite stories is the York Hospital dance video which was choreographed and filmed with our staff. The video is used as one tool to help keep moms moving during labor and what great fun. I won't underestimate, however, the hard work involved with these changes. It is important that as leaders we assist with providing the context and the background as to why change is important and supporting our teams in achieving success. We have found that with BabyScripts, it is hard to drive the adoption not because patients don’t love the technology, but because we either do not tell the patients about the product or we do not present BabyScripts enthusiastically enough. This makes adoption difficult, but it remains an area of emphasis throughout the women’s and children’s service line.
Host: Roxanna, your going to get the last word here. How does all of this circle back to building what you were calling the bank of loyal patients?
Roxanna: With our new vision to be a trusted partner, we really need to provide the highest quality care. We need to do that in new ways by reimagining how we deliver care. Part of that is technology. So really thinking about the new technologies available, like BabyScripts, but also being an ambassador and sharing that story with our patients and families, with our communities and our circles of influence. Even that internal social media, like our Yammer page, or external social media like LinkedIn. That’s part of the way we can build the bank of loyal patients, getting our message out.
Host: Right. Everybody’s got a role to play. We’re going to have to leave it there for now, but you’ve been listening to Inspiring Health, a series of conversations with Roxanna Gapstur and other WellSpan leaders about WellSpan 2025. Roxanna’s guest today has been Megan Lecas. Thanks for joining us.
Michael Carrese (Host): Welcome to Inspiring Health, a series of conversations with Roxanna Gapstur and other WellSpan leaders about WellSpan 2025. I'm Michael Carrese, and Roxanna what are we going to be talking about today?
Roxanna Gapstur Ph.D., R.N. (Guest): Today we’re going to be talking about loyal patients, which is the new currency in healthcare, and we’ll explore how we create loyalty among both our current patients and how we attract new customers.
Host: And who’s your guest to help us with that?
Roxanna: Today our guest is Megan Lecas. She’s the vice president for women and children’s service line here at WellSpan.
Host: So you lead with loyal patients being the new currency, which is a pretty bold statement. What does that mean for WellSpan?
Roxanna: It means out number one goal over the next five years must be to attract loyal patients. Our industry is shifting from fee for service to value based reimbursement, something we’ve discussed in previous podcasts. Thriving in a value based environment requires that we need to manage populations of patients. It’s easier to manage those populations when they're loyal to receiving their care at WellSpan. So we need to build our bank of loyal patients. Grow and leverage our coordinated network of care to manage the healthcare needs of the whole population. So organizations that achieve optimal scale while managing the health of populations will thrive in the future.
Host: So let’s start breaking this down a little bit. So loyal patients. How is WellSpan approaching that?
Roxanna: The best way to frame this up is considering your own favorite brands. What keeps you coming back? I think about some of the brands I'm loyal too. Brands like Amazon, Apple, Google. When we think about consuming healthcare, we need to remember our value proposition. Providing the very best quality, being easy to use at an affordable cost. We need to provide high value care to attract and retain loyal patients.
Host: Yeah. We talked a lot about value proposition, WellSpan’s value proposition in a previous show.
Roxanna: Absolutely we did. We talked about how the affordability equation plays into that. We also explored our journey to high reliability when we had Dr. MaryEllen Pfeiffer with us. We know our medical group quality metrics and our hospital quality scores are among the best in central Pennsylvania and the entire country. So retaining loyal patients centers largely on how we develop that relationship and create that trust.
Host: What about ease of use? How easy do you think it is for consumers to use WellSpan services?
Roxanna: Well, our goal is to create those loyal patients by providing new ways to access our services in our five county footprint. We have over 220 locations and eight hospitals, but we also need to leverage technology to reimagine how we interact with patients. So MyWellSpan is now a really important portal through which we engage with over 200,000 active patients. People can schedule appointments, exchange messages with their physician or APC, fill prescriptions, and share test results. We’ve also launched online urgent care which is available 24/7 for all of our employees and patients. Now when it comes to women’s services, there's two new ways we’re creating value. One is MadelineRX, an online option for birth control prescriptions which also creates a connection to our WellSpan OBGYN services. The other is BabyScripts. It provides incredible value to our patients and it’s why Megan is here with us today.
Host: Right, Megan, welcome aboard. I'm glad to have you with us. I have to say that Roxanna’s a big fan of BabyScripts because I think this is the third time I've heard her talk about it in the podcast series. How does that work?
Megan Lecas (Guest): BabyScripts is a virtual platform. It’s prescribed to expectant moms at the beginning of their pregnancy. A mobile app delivers a custom content to patients from their OB team on a weekly basis. Patients simply need to download the app from the app store. Information which is gestational age specific is delivered to patients. They can also easily access specific prenatal and post-partum information when they want or need it. BabyScripts can also illustrate the growth of the baby comparing the baby to easily visualized objects such as your baby’s as big as a peanut or as large as a grapefruit as well as providing expectant moms with common information about their pregnancy at a given point in time. So how does it work? Aside from the informational content, the BabyScripts app supports the pregnancy in a few additional ways. The list keeps growing as healthcare systems such as WellSpan are working with BabyScripts.
Host: So Megan, what are some specific ways that WellSpan’s using BabyScripts?
Megan: So I'm going to illustrate two ways in which we at WellSpan are using BabyScripts. One way is optimization. This means that mom can reduce the number of visits from 14 to 9. Optimized patients receive a Bluetooth enabled blood pressure cuff. Instead of a visit, the patient simply submits their blood pressure, their weight, and answers a few questions through their app which communicates with EPIC and then their WellSpan provider. If the patient’s clinical information falls outside of acceptable ranges, the patient is contact by their obstetrician for further assessment. Patients can take and submit their blood pressure as frequently as they wish. This providers patients with added comfort. Plus on a few occasions it has helped identify patients with high blood pressure who needed an intermediate intervention. What we’ve typically seen is at the beginning of pregnancy, these new moms are taking their blood pressure more frequently. As they advance in their care, the frequency trails off.
A second way that we’ve began using BabyScripts is in collaboration with a few insurances. We use BabyScripts to screen for social determinants for health. In partnership with the WellSpan care management team, we refer patients for needed services. For instance, if an obstetrical patient does not have access to nutritious food, we will link that patient with one of our community resources to ensure that they receive nutritious food because that’s important for both mom and baby.
Host: So Megan, how do you think BabyScripts impacts customer loyalty?
Megan: I think there’s three areas: ease of use, quality of care, and affordability. Let’s start with ease of use. We all rely on our phones to stay connected. We rely on technology to help us navigate, shop, work, track our exercise and our weight. BabyScripts is a consumer centric solution which conveniently supports pregnancy in a similar manner as we conduct the rest of our lives. The second area is quality of care. The convenience of BabyScripts helps expectant moms have accurate immediately available information about their pregnancy. If they have a question about an over the counter medication, a food choice, or health concerns, they can simply query the app. Historically patients needed to refer to books or handouts, etcetera. If it wasn’t on their person, then they didn’t have access to the information that they needed to answer their question which then required a phone call to the obstetrician’s office or sometimes they even relied on the inaccurate advice of family members. I personally know of several situations where an expecting mom was identified as having blood pressure through the in-home blood pressure monitoring. We are also monitoring weight, which can be a symptom of poor nutrition or preeclampsia. Time to treatment makes such an important difference in the health of both mom and baby.
The last area is affordability. I think of affordability in several ways: through the lens of the patient, the community, and the healthcare system. Reducing unnecessary appointments results in our patients have less time away from work, reducing their childcare costs, and spending less on travel. Our community then has access to more appointments for those who need an in-person visit. Our organization benefits because we’re able to hire the appropriate number of physicians, advanced practice clinicians, and staff especially as there's such a physician and advanced practice clinician shortage. Last year appropriated a thousand visits because of BabyScripts.
Host: Roxanna talked before about WellSpan as a brand. How do you think BabyScripts impacts WellSpan’s brand?
Megan: When we win with women, we win with the entire family. 74% of women said that they will return to the healthcare system where they delivered their babies. To your earlier point, loyal patients are the new healthcare currency. This is important because 35% of women who deliver at WellSpan are new to the system. This speaks to your comments about attracting new patients. Creating an appealing front door during childbearing years is important to our future. Products like BabyScripts, Madeline, and Baby Bump plus a highly engaged and satisfied care team supports and enhances our brand. Today’s women are more educated and aware. We must stand out for all of the right reasons.
Host: Roxanna, how is WellSpan thinking about the future of customer loyalty?
Roxanna: BabyScripts is just a great example of where we need to go in the future. We think about value. The value of replacing up to four prenatal visits allows women to spend more time at work or home and it also allows WellSpan to see patients who are at higher risk and need to be in the clinic. Our 2025 vision, a trusted partner reimagining healthcare Inspiring Health couldn’t be more aligned with an app like BabyScripts. This really hits on our reimagining healthcare focus.
Host: Right. So as we wrap up, how can WellSpan employees impact customer loyalty? Megan, why don’t you go first?
Megan: One novel way that the women’s and children’s service line is working with our staff through our WellSpan clinical council. The representatives on this council include in inpatient nursing leaders from all WellSpan hospitals. One of the committees on the council is a consumerism committee, and it is charged with speaking to patients about their experience and listening for ideas. The council also scours media and makes suggestions that we consider for implementation. Examples include our NICU camera system—Angel Eyes. It provides patients and others the ability to log into the camera system to see the baby at any time. We’re in the process of implementing CertaScan. This is a technology that captures the baby’s footprint where it’s copied and given as a keepsake. The footprint is stored in EPIC and the CertaScan software system can be retrieved if for some reason we need the footprint throughout the life of this person. I have found that there's pride and personal commitment when our teams are identifying solutions and working collectively to implement.
One of my favorite stories is the York Hospital dance video which was choreographed and filmed with our staff. The video is used as one tool to help keep moms moving during labor and what great fun. I won't underestimate, however, the hard work involved with these changes. It is important that as leaders we assist with providing the context and the background as to why change is important and supporting our teams in achieving success. We have found that with BabyScripts, it is hard to drive the adoption not because patients don’t love the technology, but because we either do not tell the patients about the product or we do not present BabyScripts enthusiastically enough. This makes adoption difficult, but it remains an area of emphasis throughout the women’s and children’s service line.
Host: Roxanna, your going to get the last word here. How does all of this circle back to building what you were calling the bank of loyal patients?
Roxanna: With our new vision to be a trusted partner, we really need to provide the highest quality care. We need to do that in new ways by reimagining how we deliver care. Part of that is technology. So really thinking about the new technologies available, like BabyScripts, but also being an ambassador and sharing that story with our patients and families, with our communities and our circles of influence. Even that internal social media, like our Yammer page, or external social media like LinkedIn. That’s part of the way we can build the bank of loyal patients, getting our message out.
Host: Right. Everybody’s got a role to play. We’re going to have to leave it there for now, but you’ve been listening to Inspiring Health, a series of conversations with Roxanna Gapstur and other WellSpan leaders about WellSpan 2025. Roxanna’s guest today has been Megan Lecas. Thanks for joining us.