Twistle Patient Engagement

The Twistle^® Patient Engagement by Health Catalyst software delivers personalized, step-by-step guidance to the patient’s mobile phone to keep them on track with their medical plan of care. Care teams are alerted via EHR inbox or a dashboard when patients deviate from the expected course of care so they may intervene before complications ensue; clinicians are more productive because they are able to focus their time on patients who require greater support.

Twistle provides patient messages on their cell phones and a clinical dashboard and emails to alert care teams.

The problem

Patients who are actively engaged in their care—defined as having the knowledge, skills, and willingness to manage their own health—have a 21% lower cost of care. At least 30% of patients don’t understand their treatment plan, which leads to intentional or unintentional non-adherence.

Health inequities among people of different races and ethnicities, geographical locations, and social classes are growing and directly affecting health through the distribution of resources, risk, and power.

Health systems try to engage patients through their existing patient portals, but typically see less than 25% adoption.

Our approach

Twistle uses secure, patient-centric communication to deliver personalized, step-by-step guidance to the patient’s mobile phone to drive care plan and protocol adherence, which improves outcomes, lowers costs, and generates clinical, financial, and operational value:

• 90%+ patient engagement rates
• 20% improvement in medication/device adherence
• 32% fewer readmissions

Benefits and features

Twistle keeps patients on track as they navigate their care journeys:

• Reach every patient and reduce health inequities with a "patients first" approach. Send messages to patient cell phones via SMS text—the easiest, most convenient way to reach patients; other options include email, EMR portals, and interactive voice response.
• Integrate clinical content and communication best practices. A rich pathway library includes assessment forms, appointment reminders, instructions, and more.
• Increase efficiency of care teams. Proactively address common questions and reduce inbound patient calls—and alert care team members when patients need additional help.
• Provide flexible tech and seamless integration. Automate and personalize patient messages with EHR and device integrations to automatically message patients who meet certain criteria.

Synergies achieved through the combination of Twistle and Health Catalyst include:

• Personalize engagement pathways using source-of-truth data from the Data Operating System (DOS™). Support personalization of new or in-flight patient engagement pathways with patient-specific treatment regimens and clinical condition data
• Seamlessly stratify patients. The Health Catalyst Pop Analyzer™ application stratifies and prioritizes patients with specific conditions and risk indicators to trigger outreach. 
• Provide analytics insights. Contextualize health information and inform the best action to take so that Twistle's personalized patient outreach comes at the right time and for the right reason.
• Extend the value of Twistle with clinical improvement teams. Data on clinical outcomes matched with specific interactions can help the team further improve patient interactions.

Use cases

• A clinical quality officer wants to reduce readmissions by overcoming challenges with follow-up calls. Every patient automatically receives post-discharge text messages to confirm prescription fulfilment, discharge instructions, and follow-up appointments. The results: A 62% increase in patient follow-up and a 28% reduction in readmissions.
• An Anesthesia group wants to reduce the number of phone calls and unnecessary ED visits associated with using a pain relief system that delivers postoperative local anesthetic. A series of messages address various topics including catheter management, medication titration, pain level monitoring, and adverse events. They found that 87% of patients engaged with all messages, phone calls decreased by 48%, and pain relief-related ED visits reduced to zero.
• A Gastrointestinal Surgery service line implemented a perioperative surgical home (PSH) program for colorectal surgery patients. Twistle automates repetitive tasks, ensures consistent and timely outreach, improves adherence with treatment regimens, and increases patient satisfaction. Patients experienced 35% fewer readmissions, a 36% reduction in length of stay, and 16% lower direct costs.