Kalkaska Memorial Health Center: Uses Marketware to Target Services Expansion, Keep Care Local

Kalkaska Memorial Health Center Practice Overview

Convincing Patients to Stay Home Benefits the Entire Community

To augment existing services and meet community needs, Kalkaska Memorial had to learn where they were lacking. Where would they get that information? Like most healthcare organizations, they got some information from patients and providers, most of it anecdotal. The implemented EHR also provided some guidance, but Conklin says they took that information with a grain of salt.

“We built extra caution into our business plans knowing that we didn’t have all the data we would have liked,” he says, “and we didn’t have complete confidence in the data we were working with.”

A targeted marketing email, a product demonstration, and a call with an Ohio hospital convinced Kalkaska that Marketware would give them more of the data they sought. In particular, the Ohio call illustrated for Conklin and Kalkaska how they could effectively use Marketware’s Physician Relationship Management (PRM) and Healthcare Analytics tools.

“For us, the main thing we look at are those physician relationships,” Conklin said. “Where do you see opportunities to strengthen relationships with existing providers?”

Obviously, keeping patients on the Kalkaska campus grows the hospital as a business. But as the only hospital in the county, it also solidifies finances so that local residents have somewhere fairly close to go in an emergency. It is this care symbiosis that is enabled by useful data and motivated leadership.

“If they’re receiving care in the community, they’re going to communicate about the surgeon that did their procedure,” Conklin says. “We want them to share their experiences with others.”

Expanding Services to Meet Patients Where They Are

The value of Marketware for Kalkaska Memorial is in the data that enables them to strengthen provider relationships.

That data told Kalkaska decision-makers that, of patients who had a primary care provider in the health system and needed an orthopedic surgeon, 56% were leaving Kalkaska for that care.

“We talked to the provider group and asked what they’re sending outside the system,” Conklin says. “Is it knees? Is it hips? Based on that, we were able to support doubling the number of orthopedic providers on our campus.”

Similar Marketware data told Kalkaska they could double the GI provider clinic volume without adverse impact.

Marketware data provides awareness of both current and anticipated demand. For example, Kalkaska purchased a family medicine practice that went live in February from which they had received zero specialist referrals,  which they never would have known without Marketware. 

Through Marketware, the health center anticipated an uptick in referrals from the new practice to the main campus and provided marketing education to new staff about the relationship and providers they could refer to.

What other types of advance planning has Marketware enabled at Kalkaska Memorial?

“We just had a conversation today with our podiatry group,” Conklin says, “explaining that we need a third day. With Marketware, we get more information about referrals, where they’re coming from, and where we need more from providers or additional providers.”

With healthcare organizations across the country facing provider shortages and patients facing long wait times for care, Marketware provides the data necessary to get ahead of demand and prepare for expected logjams.

Enabling a Business Model that Benefits Patients & Providers

As Kalkaska Memorial’s experience demonstrates, Marketware enables improved levels of understanding, preparation, and collaboration. Importantly, these improvements accrue to both the patient population and the healthcare organization. 

With Marketware, Kalkaska Memorial enjoys improved finances as service levels increase and local patients stay close to home for care.

“The implementation of Marketware has contributed to increases in revenue,” said Conklin, “and the data available makes us feel like we can continue to grow both finances and services.”

Marketware also empowers Kalkaska to anticipate the local community’s future healthcare needs. 

“You want to make sure you take care of as many patients as you can close to home,” Conklin says, “and you have to be strategic with where your initiatives go.”

For those patients who previously had to leave the community for care, with some perhaps traveling more than 3 hours to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Kalkaska Memorial Health Center provides a reliable healthcare partner a short drive from home. For most services, the difference is one of convenience, but in some circumstances, it can also be a matter of life and death.

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