{"id":1514,"date":"2017-12-07T13:41:20","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T21:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.sprucehealth.com\/?p=1514"},"modified":"2023-10-26T05:59:46","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T12:59:46","slug":"practice-use-case-dr-jonah-mink-successfully-uses-spruce-secure-messaging-primary-care-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/practice-use-case-dr-jonah-mink-successfully-uses-spruce-secure-messaging-primary-care-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Spruce Secure Messaging for Your Primary Care Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s no question that our society is moving toward texting<\/a> and other convenient modes of communication, but medicine has been conspicuously lagging this trend. Despite evolving and clear patient preferences<\/a>, many practices are still reachable only by phone, and few medical organizations have truly\u00a0figured out how to integrate modern messaging into\u00a0clinical workflows in a successful, sustainable way. It’s not an impossible puzzle to solve, though, and the benefits are worth it.<\/p>\n

Meet\u00a0Jonah Mink, MD, a family practice primary care physician who has been using secure messaging on Spruce to coordinate efficiently with his staff and to care for his large patient panel, at scale and to great effect.<\/p>\n

Read on to learn how Dr. Mink has found success with messaging and how he addresses the issues that often\u00a0stop other practices from doing the same.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"
\nAbout\u00a0Jonah Mink, MD<\/h2>\n

Practice:<\/strong>\u00a0Stoll Medical Group
\nPractice Location:<\/strong>\u00a0Philadelphia, PA
\nPractice Type:<\/strong>\u00a0Family practice, fee-for-service primary care
\nKey Team Members on Spruce:<\/strong>\u00a04 (practice administrator, medical assistant, scribe, and Dr. Mink)
\nPanel Size:<\/strong>\u00a05,000 (not all are consistently active)<\/p>\n

\n

How Dr. Mink Uses Messaging\u2014and How He Gets His Patients to Join In<\/h2>\n

Dr. Mink has managed to get\u00a0nearly 1,000 of his patients to install the Spruce app and connect with him for secure messaging.<\/p>\n

While Spruce supports standard SMS texting, which doesn’t require patients to install\u00a0anything on their phones, Dr. Mink\u00a0prefers to use exclusively secure app-to-app messaging on the platform. This increases\u00a0security, helps with HIPAA compliance, and enables advanced features like telemedicine and file attachments, but it also means that\u00a0his patients need to\u00a0download the Spruce app. As with anything that involves extra work, no matter how minimal, this step could easily be a sticking point that\u00a0keeps patients away from the service.<\/p>\n

\n

Nearly 1,000 of Dr. Mink’s patients have installed the Spruce app and connected with him for secure messaging.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So how does Dr. Mink get his patients on board with Spruce and secure messaging?\u00a0He’s made Spruce part of his in-person workflow, and he\u00a0introduces patients to it\u00a0only when they need it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“With patients, I use Spruce primarily for two things at first,”\u00a0said Dr. Mink. “I use it to send educational materials related to in-person visits, and also to share lab results after visits. I start the messaging conversation\u00a0while\u00a0patients are\u00a0still in the office, and Spruce sends them a text message to join me.<\/p>\n

“I tell everyone that\u00a0Spruce is my primary method of communication and that they can reach out anytime. They\u00a0like that, and it motivates\u00a0them to install\u00a0the app. A lot of people in our area are young professionals, too, and everybody knows how to text and prefers texts to calls. That’s also helped uptake, I think.”<\/p>\n

\n

“I tell everyone that Spruce is my primary method of communication and that they can reach out anytime. They like that, and [many of my patients] prefer texts to calls.”
\n\u2014Jonah Mink, MD<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Dr. Mink related that some\u00a0patients install the app while they’re still in\u00a0his office,\u00a0and he uses\u00a0the platform\u00a0to check up on the rest of them later to make sure that they eventually do join. If they don’t, he resends the invitation, which is a simple one-click process on Spruce. In total, Dr. Mink estimates that\u00a0more than 80% of patients will download\u00a0the Spruce app when he offers it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“And I only onboard people when it’s relevant,” Dr. Mink added. “That is, I only\u00a0do it when I have something to share. People are interested in getting their lab results and in seeing follow-up materials, and they’ll sign up to do those things. Then, once they’re on Spruce, they can use the app\u00a0to\u00a0initiate contact with me, too.”<\/p>\n

Many physicians fear that patients will reach out excessively if given an open communication channel with their medical team, but Dr. Mink and his staff haven’t found that to be the case with their population, even at scale.<\/p>\n

“It actually hasn’t been cumbersome,” said Dr. Mink. “My patients haven’t abused it, and when they do message, it’s usually\u00a0for things that are easily solvable. It’s\u00a0been super useful for triage, too, and I think that’s good for patients. I can tell them, ‘I’m going to send in this anti-inflammatory for you, and you don’t have to come in’; they love that. Or if they do need to come in, we can make that decision faster. Part of the point and why people like us and keep coming back is that\u00a0we’re so accessible.<\/span>”<\/p>\n

And Spruce Messaging for His Staff, Too!<\/h2>\n

“I also have my scribe, administrator, and medical assistant using Spruce” said Dr. Mink. “They’ve been great and really joined in, and it’s been highly effective for task sharing.”<\/p>\n

\n

“We’ve been able to communicate so efficiently [on Spruce] that I don’t have any paper on my desk at all anymore.”
\n\u2014Jonah Mink, MD<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In\u00a0Dr. Mink’s\u00a0workflow, when a patient request comes in,\u00a0he quickly evaluates\u00a0it and then\u00a0uses Spruce’s internal note\u00a0and paging\u00a0capabilities to bring\u00a0his staff in to help, as needed. All of\u00a0this\u00a0care coordination occurs within each patient’s unique thread, too, so it stays in one coherent place.<\/p>\n

Notably, many medical teams\u00a0on Spruce use a workflow that is the exact opposite of this, with front-office staff serving as the first line for patient\u00a0communication and then triaging issues to providers only when necessary. The platform is flexible\u00a0enough to accommodate nearly any practice pattern, however, and Dr. Mink likes to get\u00a0the first\u00a0crack at incoming patient messages.<\/p>\n

“It’s so much more efficient with me triaging to others rather than the reverse,” said Dr. Mink. “Scheduling patients for appointments has been huge, for example. They text me, and I can triage their issue and pass them to staff right away to schedule.\u00a0All of this\u00a0happens on Spruce, too, so it’s really efficient.”<\/p>\n

He paused and then added, “We’ve been able to communicate so efficiently, actually, that I don’t have any paper on my desk at all anymore.”<\/p>\n

\n

Want to\u00a0Take Your Patient and Team Communication to the Next Level?<\/h2>\n

Spruce\u00a0powers HIPAA-compliant messaging that will delight your patients and staff, while effortlessly making your organizational workflows more efficient. Start with us today<\/a> and see how\u00a0simple it can be to have modern, secure communications!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s no question that our society is moving toward texting and other convenient modes of communication, but medicine has been conspicuously lagging this trend. Despite evolving and clear patient preferences, many practices are still reachable only by phone, and few medical organizations have truly\u00a0figured out how to integrate modern messaging into\u00a0clinical workflows in a successful, sustainable way. It’s not an impossible puzzle to solve, though, and the benefits are worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"Spruce Secure Messaging for Your Primary Care Practice - Spruce Blog","description":"There's no question that our society is moving toward texting and other convenient modes of communication, but medicine has been conspicuously lagging this tren"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[7,40,26,32],"different-template":[],"class_list":["post-1514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-practice-profiles","tag-caremessenger","tag-case-study","tag-communication","tag-practice"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1514"},{"taxonomy":"different-template","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/different-template?post=1514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}