Digitalization for Growth: Allendale’s Patient Care Management Success Story

About Allendale:

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PRODUCTS/INTEGRATIONS: Health Cloud, Slack, Kipu

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Allendale Treatment is a highly-rated, luxury inpatient healthcare facility in Northeast Indiana. They provide individualized treatment for people struggling with addiction and/or mental health disorders.Allendale’s patients are often seeking help during a time in their lives when receiving compassionate care as quickly as possible is critical to their health outcomes — which is something Allendale is known for and takes pride in delivering.They chose Kicksaw and Salesforce for a complete overhaul of the systems that make up their patient journey management solution, in order to uphold and scale that high standard of care:

• After experiencing a sudden increase in call volume over a short period of time
• For the planned opening of several new facilities
• And while individuals and teams operate remotely if needed

“Nothing about our previous solution was working for us, and we came into this engagement asking ‘what now’. Our Kicksaw pod was so attentive to the little details from our first meeting onward, and the system and knowledge we have now has made everyone on the Allendale team feel so empowered.” - Molly Vericker Director of Admissions

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The Challenge:

Allendale’s teams were reliant on a number of disparate systems and manual processes, which they were quickly outgrowing:

• A group messaging app was used for numerous processes, including communication between teams, approving policies for potential patients, and emergency information   
• The Admissions team was reliant on an extensive pipeline spreadsheet for everything from pre-screen assessments and clinical onboarding of patients, to patient discharge
• Clinical case and appointment information were managed in Kipu Health  
• A separate spreadsheet was being used for bed management, which required frequent updates and extensive oversight 
• Business Development, a team that often works in the field, was manually transferring an extensive amount of notes and data from mobile notes into reports 

Allendale wanted their new solution to address key concerns: data organization and traceability, team coordination and communication, process speed and efficiency, knowledge transfer for staff onboarding, siloed data, and ease-of-use — all to ensure the best possible experience for both patients and employees.

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The Solution:

A clear goal to meet Allendale’s needs emerged: centralizing all data and processes via Salesforce.

Salesforce Health Cloud was used as a foundation to transition Allendale off of spreadsheets and consolidate their data. So, instead of entering or updating data across multiple sources, information can be entered or updated as needed and referenced by multiple teams.

• While both the Business Development and Admissions teams can enter information into the system, permissions ensure the right information is provided to the right resources, while leadership maintains visibility of all data and processes

Ease-of-use and team adoption were top of mind when it came to moving Allendale’s teams off of the other disparate tools they were using:

• Salesforce Trailhead provides free solution training for team members
• Slack was chosen for internal messaging and collaboration
• Five9 is used to further centralize data

Kicksaw took the time to explain everything they were building in a way that was easy to understand and made sure we were comfortable with it. Our teams are obsessed with their new solution.”

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Health Cloud was configured to further improve the user experience, as well as to address Allendale’s remaining pain points and goals. Key enhancements included new dashboards — one for bed management and several for the business development team — eliminating the need to create separate reports and allowing for easy information traceability.

Kipu EMR integration was also a core part of ensuring Allendale’s solution had fully centralized information and functionality. 

• Things like patient information, evaluations, and clinical data that are entered into Salesforce can sync with health record data in Kipu
• And things like appointment and case information, which leverages Kipu, can sync with Salesforce, so that Health Cloud can serve as Allendale’s single source of truth
• This integration also helps enable the creation of comprehensive care assessment and management plans

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The Impact:

Although the Allendale team had mixed feelings about taking on such a big change prior to starting their engagement, Kicksaw was able to address any concerns and build excitement for both the project and their new solution immediately. 

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“Kicksaw was able to dive inside the core of Allendale and learn everything from our values to the way we work, and then figure out how to meet our needs based on the information they gathered. The solution they put in place has truly changed our business and set our teams up for complete success.”

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Their call flow processes have sped up dramatically, due to their ability to instantly see information across the patient lifecycle in Salesforce and pick up where another team member left off, rather than checking multiple sources for data. This has allowed Admissions team members to:

• Focus completely on making sure a patient feels comfortable and welcome
• Easily see things like admission and discharge dates, or if a patient is returning after needing urgent care  

Onboarding for new team members is now straightforward, as the number of steps has greatly reduced and processes can be clearly defined — while existing team members have expressed enthusiasm about process consistency, being able to find the data they need at a glance, and no longer having to update multiple systems when information changes.

Both the Business Development and Admissions teams have seen tangible improvements and are able to rely completely on a single source for data:

• For the first time in four years, patient referral lead numbers match for both teams — meaning they are on the same page when it comes to referrals for potential patients
• With the click of a button, the care team can now do everything from reserving a bed to getting a report in real-time as discharge dates change
• A policy approval Slack channel means the exact information requested can be clicked, viewed, and verified quickly and easily 
• Similarly, Slack-driven business development processes for policy approval, lead submission, and collaboration have addressed that team’s biggest pain point of streamlined communication for faster outcomes

Since implementation, Allendale’s efficiency has improved to 85% across referral to intake processes, combined with a higher volume of patient leads being processed in this shorter time. 

Scalability for growth and enabling resources to work remotely were major goals going into this project. Allendale teams and individual employees are now set up with the tools they need to provide optimal patient care, while successfully managing their expansion and continued growth.

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