As a North Texas non-profit healthcare organization, Project Access-Collin County has helped hundreds of uninsured patients get charity care from local physicians. Executive Director, Jennifer Bolton, needed to streamline their patient onboarding process to online format. At the time, Project Access-Collin County had over 12 pages of paperwork for a patient to fill out when they checked into the office. By digitizing the same paperwork online, it can drastically reduced patient wait times.

How DWD identified a solution

Since many of Project Access-Collin County’s patients did not have access to a computer other than their smartphones, DWD offered to create an mobile focused experience. Desktop experience is still important, but to maximize the best patient experience, mobile is needed. When collecting sensitive patient information, DWD had to make sure the portal is HIPAA compliant. As a majority of Project Access-Collin County’s patient are Spanish speaking, they needed a Spanish version of the patient portal as well. In addition, web based e-signatures is needed to ensure patient authorization.

Necessary Features

The following features were needed to complete the patient portal onboarding platform:

Patient Side:

• End-to-End Encryption
• Patient Sign Up
• Digitize 12 Registration Forms
• e-Signature for Patient
• e-Signature for Authorized User
• Enable Smartphone Camera to take pictures of documents, driver’s license, passport, prescription bottles
• Downloadable PDF file of Forms and attached pictures

Admin Side:

• End-to-End Encryption
• Add Multiple Admin Users
• View Patient Sign Ups
• Reset Patient Passwords
• Download Patient Registration Forms
• Delete Patients
• View Patient Login History
• View Admin Login History
• Block IP Addresses

Storing Sensitive Data

In order to be HIPAA compliant, AES-256 bit encryption is needed. Additional security layers such as IP address blocking is also needed. The team at DWD created an AES-256 bit encryption layer between patients uploading their information. In addition, Project Access-Collin County was given tools to monitor all incoming IP addresses, blocking any nefarious bad actors mitigating breaches.

Mobile View Experience

As 100% of Project Access-Collin County’s patients has smartphones, a mobile experience was necessary. User experience had to be better than filling out paperwork with a simple and easy-to-use interface. E-signature had to be fat finger friendly. When going to any doctor’s office, a typical patient onboarding process consists of multiple paperwork where you have to fillout the same information such as name, phone number, date-of-birth, address twice, three or four times. By collecting these information once, we could reuse it throughout the forms - kinda like an autofill. This reduces stress on the patients and speeds up their online onboarding experience.

Impact on Project Access-Collin County's Patients

In conclusion, Project Access-Collin County had reduced the patient wait times by allowing them to pre-checkin. By digitizing the patient onboarding process, Project Access-Collin County was able to streamline their workflow, eliminate scanning, save paper, and save time. 

Patients benefited by being able to do a pre-checkin at home - especially from their smartphone. And with their own patient dashboard, they can easily update their information without having to come to the clinic.