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About Phreesia
Phreesia is the trusted leader in patient activation, giving providers, health plans, life sciences companies and other organizations tools to help patients take a more active role in their care. Founded in 2005, Phreesia enabled more than 150 million patient visits in 2023 – more than 1 in 10 visits across the U.S. – scale that we believe allows us to make meaningful impact. Offering patient-driven digital solutions for intake, outreach, education and more, Phreesia enhances the patient experience, drives efficiency and improves healthcare outcomes. To learn more, visit phreesia.com.
CASE STUDY
Like most federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), HealthLinc serves a diverse population. Addressing patients’ social determinants of health is a core component of its mission—and the organization partners closely with Phreesia to meet that objective.
But with more than 40,000 patients annually, HealthLinc needed a better way to allocate its limited staff. After enrolling in Building Bridges to Better Health: A Primary Health Care Challenge—a nationwide competition to develop innovative, low-cost, scalable solutions for improving patient outcomes—HealthLinc worked with Phreesia to integrate the Patient Activation Measure® (PAM®) into its intake workflows.
When patients complete the PAM, they are assigned a score that helps providers quantify their ability to self-manage their health. Higher scores indicate higher engagement in one’s
— Melissa Mitchell, MS, LSSGB, Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, HealthLinc
healthcare, and lower scores indicate lower engagement. By using Phreesia to digitally administer PAM and SDOH screenings, HealthLinc can easily administer the right level of intervention to each patient based on their PAM score. Phreesia automatically routes high-scoring patients to a self-service SDOH workflow and drives low-scoring patients to a community health worker for more intensive support.
“PAM helps us assess where patients are in their healthcare journey and determine the level of intervention they need,” says Melissa Mitchell, Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer at HealthLinc. “Our healthcare workers want to help as many people as they can, and the more you understand about your patients, the more you can do to help them.”
Size: 100+ providers, 12 freestanding clinics
Location: Northern Indiana
About the organization
HealthLinc became an FQHC in 2006 and serves more than 40,000 patients annually. The health center partners with organizations throughout northern Indiana to promote whole-person health and eliminate barriers to care. By employing a patient-centered medical home model, HealthLinc strives to deliver coordinated, comprehensive and accessible care to patients who need it most.
The Phreesia difference
PAM assessments completed per month
of patients identified as having low activation
patients connected with the SDOH resources they need
50+
57%
43% more
Why HealthLinc chose PAM®
As an FQHC, HealthLinc is required to meet specific quality benchmarks to secure government funding, including social determinants of health tracking. The organization has long used Phreesia to do so by digitally assessing patients’ social needs and connecting them with relevant support.
But like most FHQCs, HealthLinc has limited resources—and its community health workers were overwhelmed by the volume of patients who screened positive for social risks. As a result, HealthLinc needed an efficient, scalable way to determine which patients required more hands-on intervention. To meet that goal and support its participation in the HRSA’s Building Bridges to Better Health: A Primary Health Care Challenge, HealthLinc turned to Phreesia.
“We wanted every member of our care team to know how much assistance each patient needs,” says Melissa Mitchell, Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer. “We needed smart resources, and we needed to equip our staff with the right tools.”
In partnership with Phreesia, HealthLinc implemented the Patient Activation Measure (PAM)—an evidence-based assessment tool backed by nearly two decades of research. Endorsed as a performance measure by the National Quality Forum, PAM scores patients on a 0-100 scale that helps providers understand each patient’s ability to take an active role in their health.
Key results
HealthLinc first piloted PAM at a clinic in northwest Indiana. By integrating PAM into its existing SDOH screening workflows, the FQHC was able to automatically connect highly activated patients with self-service resources and allocate its community health workers’ time to patients who required more personalized support.
Within just two months, HealthLinc’s community health workers saw a 43% reduction in time spent on direct patient intervention, enabling HealthLinc to conduct far more SDOH screenings—all by using Phreesia’s platform to determine the appropriate level of intervention for each patient.
“Once we know a patient’s PAM score, we can determine who on our care team to engage based on how much help that patient needs,” Mitchell says. “That results in a workflow gain for our community health workers, and less wasted time trying to connect with patients who can access services on their own.”
After the successful pilot, HealthLinc quickly scaled the solution to six of its clinics. It will be implemented at all other HealthLinc sites soon, Mitchell says.
“PAM helps us deliver the right care to the people who need it most—and that’s really what we’re here for,” she says. “We’re here to change communities. So, if you want to make a difference in the outcomes of your patients, PAM is something you should look at.”
How HealthLinc uses Phreesia to support SDOH efforts