Phytel's Proactive Patient Outreach solution to be deployed at the Mankato Clinic

Phytel, the industry leader in automated, physician-led health improvement, announced today that the Mankato Clinic, one of the largest physician-owned multispecialty groups in Minnesota, has agreed to deploy its Proactive Patient Outreach solution. The nearly century-old Mankato Clinic, which includes 110 providers in nine locations, selected Phytel to help reduce its no-show rate and to increase the provision of needed services to its patients.

“We chose Phytel because they provide us an excellent opportunity to find those patients who are in need of care and bring them back in to for recommended services,” commented Mark Matthias, MD, chief medical officer of the Mankato Clinic. “In addition, we have a higher than average no-show rate at some of our sites, and Phytel will help us bring more of those patients in for the appointments they made.”

Mankato also aims to raise its quality scores by ensuring that all of its patients get recommended preventive and chronic-disease care, Matthias added. “We can use Phytel’s registry capabilities to target specific patient populations who need services while improving our quality scores,” he said.

Steve Schelhammer, CEO of Phytel, said, “We are pleased that the Mankato Clinic, a well-respected group that is a leading provider in its community, recognizes the ability of Phytel’s technology to make a difference in the quality of care. We are confident that Mankato’s physicians will soon start seeing many patients who have dropped off their radar screen and need to be seen.”

Phytel combines an electronic registry based upon nationally recognized protocols with automated messaging to patients who require services. Since most of these patients have been noncompliant with their treatment plans, the reminders result in an increase in visits by patients who need recommended care.

In the family medicine, internal medicine and ob/gyn departments, Mankato will initially have reminders sent to patients about mammography, colonoscopy, and dexa-scanning. The group’s cardiology, gastroenterology, urology, and pulmonology departments have each chosen three protocols for patient communications and have fine-tuned the messages they want sent to their patients. As the group gauges the patient response, Matthias said, it will gradually add more protocols.

Mankato expects to use Phytel’s proven ability to rapidly launch the program, Matthias noted. He is confident that the additional volume generated by the service will more than pay for Phytel’s cost. “Based on Phytel’s track record and what other clinics have experienced, we’re confident that this will be a good situation for everyone.”

www.mankato-clinic.com