The challenge

Horizon Health Network (HHN) offers provider-to-patient and provider-to-providervirtual care services for more than 20 specialties. They have a wide geographicalreach and are continuously expanding virtual care to new locations, specialties,and direct-to-patient modalities. But scaling up too fast or too far can be risky.Organizations with large and growing virtual care programs may inadvertentlybuild duplicative offerings or create an inconsistent patient experience.

The organization

HHN is the largest regional health authority in New Brunswick, Canada. Thenetwork consists of 12 hospitals, and 100 medical facilities, clinics, and officesranging from acute care to community-based health services.

The approach

HNN already had a robust IT governance process in place for many years, but in2018 they rolled out a virtual care-specific intake process to more closelymanage the growing program. The goals of the centralized intake model are toensure alignment across facilities, support a consistent patient experience, andpromote the use of innovative service delivery options.

The result

HHN has pursued many novel virtual care use cases, such as tele-baby programfor premature babies. The intake model helps teams thoughtfully evaluate andexecute clinically validated care options for patients. The intake model also helpsHHN quickly respond to market changes. During Covid-19, they were floodedwith intake requests. By having one central process, they were able to prioritizeresources and rapidly respond to the most pressing clinical needs first.