{Straight talk for clients.}
IN THIS ISSUE: Flu season is on its way. Are you ready? Check out some flu season tips and reminders about Agility flu functionality – including the newest functionality that was made available in the 10.20 release.
Dear Agility,
With flu season right around the corner, we’re preparing to administer hundreds of flu vaccinations within a short period of time. What can Agility do to make my life easier?
The Solution
With reported cases of flu typically starting to increase in October, you’re probably already thinking about how you will keep your employees compliant and patient supply handy. Surprisingly, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported flu cases going all the way through May of the following year, so get ready for the whirlwind to begin.
For Employee Health, ensuring that all employees receive the flu shot during the upcoming flu season is of the utmost importance. If an employee refuses, then instructions on the proper use and application of a surgical mask may be necessary to decrease potential exposure. Without compliance reports, keeping on top of this arduous responsibility can be rather difficult, if not impossible. Use Agility to run reports that can aid you in keeping track of those individuals who have had their flu shot, as well as those employees that are due. The Surveillance Compliance Report assists you in tracking those in or out of compliance while the Surveillance Status Report will show you who is due or overdue for their flu shot.
Once you determine the employees, contractors, and/or volunteers who are eligible to receive the flu vaccine, administering it can be quite a task. With limited resources in the Employee Health department, compared to the number of employees receiving the vaccine, stress levels can rise. Proper planning allowing ample time to send notifications and then administer the vaccine will aid in preventing a last-minute rush to meet compliance deadlines.
While notifications help you get employees into the clinic, consider how you’ll handle those that are unable to make it in during regular EH office hours. Conducting an onsite flu clinic centrally located during common lunch hours can assist in allowing employees to drop by for the vaccination. For those that are still procrastinating, dropping by their office or their floor may be necessary to administer the vaccine.
To make the most of your time, take advantage of the features in Agility. You’re able to send the Flu Consent Form ahead of time via the Employee Portal to allow employees an opportunity to fill it out in advance. This will cut out the 5-10 minutes it takes to complete and sign the form in the clinic. Depending on your employees’ needs, ensure you have the Flu Consent Form available in multiple languages.
When running the clinic, new functionality in 10.20 allows you to collect signatures directly on the device running Agility to increase your mobility and efficiency. Planning to use paper consents? You’ll no longer have to go into each visit record to scan in the Consent Form. Another new feature in 10.20 allows you to save time uploading those employee consents and activities to the employee’s record via Quick Load.
If you use a portable device, like Caraflow, to enter all of your flu data, you may be able to pull that information from your device into Agility without the laborious task of manually entering it in.
Another option to avoid an unexpected spike of flu shots compromising your wait times for other services is to hold an onsite flu clinic for your top employers. On top of charging a flat fee for the flu vaccine itself, consider charging an hourly rate for your staff to provide the service onsite. Employers would be more willing to allow their employees to get their flu shot during their break than having them leave for an hour or so to go to your clinic. Additionally, employees would be more willing to receive the free vaccine if it were provided to them at their convenience. For those employees who are not able to receive their flu shot during the planned onsite window (vacation, sick, etc), provide the employer with vouchers that can be distributed to employees and redeemed at your clinic. Charge the employer for each voucher you leave behind.
Similar to onsite flu clinics provided in the hospital setting, the new electronic signature capture functionality and Quick Load option for paper consents can be utilized in a remote office setting as well.
What’s next?
If you haven’t scheduled your upgrade to Agility 10.20, contact agilitysupport@Nethealth.com to make sure you can take advantage of the new functionality for flu season.
Join us for a webinar—all about flu!
We’re hosting an Agility client webinar on August 24th at 12pm ET that will help get you ready for flu season. See a live demo of ways you can streamline flu documentation this season, including a live demo of the new the 10.20 flu enhancements. Hear from a Manager of EH and Safety whose hospital has proven tips and best practices that keep flu season both sane and fun while reaching their goals. Click here to learn more and register.
This month’s contributor was Eddie Stahl, Clinical Solutions Consultant
Did You Know?
Earlier this year, we conducted a survey all about wellness. Out of those who responded, 73% of you are offering an internal wellness program for employees, while 33% are offering wellness programs for external clients. However, only 50% of you who are supporting a wellness program feel your current solution for wellness documentation is working well. We hope to help improve this number in the coming year. After understanding many of your needs even more deeply through conducting one-on-one studies, we’ve planned enhancements in Agility to some basic Wellness capabilities such as making the Wellness profile more customizable and adding additional reporting options. Depending on the interest and adoption of these enhancements, in the future, Agility may expand to offer even more wellness functionality including the incorporation of portals. Interested in being a part of future studies about wellness or other topics? Click here to learn more about Net Health Insiders.
Interested in more stats of how your peers are doing Wellness? See the responses to more survey questions below.
And the winner is….
Thanks for your feedback in our second quarter Product Satisfaction Survey.
Each quarter, we ask you to complete a brief survey sharing Agility feedback. Those who complete the survey can enter a drawing for either a donation to a charity of the winner’s choice or a prize, most recently an iPad. Our third quarter winner was Sandra W. Congratulations! Thanks for your thoughtful feedback.
