Help patients find care faster with digital front door tools and clinical decision support
Empower patients with digital health tools that help them find care at the right time and in the right setting — your organization. Our platform supports clinical decision support tools that guide patients through their symptoms and direct them to appropriate care options. These digital healthcare solutions offer 24/7 access to evidence-based care guides, enabling patients to take informed action. They enhance trust in your brand while improving patient engagement and access.
Looking for a smarter way to drive patient engagement? Our Symptom Checker acts as a clinical decision support tool that connects users to the right care at the right time. It integrates seamlessly with your scheduling, virtual visits, and in-person services, making it an ideal component of your digital front door strategy.
Patient engagement apps that build trust and guide care decisions
Be as close as their pocket or purse ... Your patient engagement app becomes a trusted companion that helps patients make confident, informed decisions. By adding our Symptom Checker and digital self-care tools to your mobile experience, you enable users to quickly find care, use telemedicine tools, and connect with your scheduling and provider directory platforms. All content is available in English, Spanish, and French-Canadian, and written at a 6th-grade health literacy level to ensure accessibility across diverse populations.
Skip the brochure-ware and deliver useful tools that consumers want and information parents need:
Symptom checker
Our Symptom Checker is ready the moment someone has symptoms. It helps them determine how sick they are and what level of care is appropriate, if any, to help direct patient flow. Each care guide provides step-by-step care advice for self-care and symptom relief.
First aid
Our First Aid content includes 50+ brief, instructional topics for use when seconds count. Each with an illustration to support immediate action, if needed.
Parent advice
Covers 147 parenting topics and delivers trusted healthcare decision support with clear next steps. They address the most common behavior and wellness questions parents ask their physicians. Each provides a description of the problem and 3 to 5 specific recommendations to address the concern.
Dosage tables
Dosage tables for commonly used over-the-counter drugs, referenced in our Care Advice. The pediatric dose tables are based upon the child’s weight and age. These tables serve as medical decision support tools for caregivers managing OTC treatment at home.
Directing patient care with trusted clinical decision support tools
- Support tools: our clinical decision support content helps users evaluate symptoms and take the right action — anytime, day or night.
- Right care, right time: patients receive timely, accurate care recommendations based on validated decision support — improving outcomes and reducing unnecessary visits.
- Connection to care: users are routed to your clinics, telemedicine platforms, or scheduling tools based on their symptoms — improving digital front door performance and directing patient flow efficiently.
Guide care decisions, optimize patient flow
Use Self Care Decisions’ tools to enhance your role as a trusted digital healthcare resource. These digital health tools provide value around the clock, supporting patient engagement across all types of healthcare organizations.
Our Symptom Checker helps people choose the right level of care, based upon their symptom severity. When the recommended action is mapped to your best options for care, it’s a win-win for the user and your organization. This custom mapping has the added benefits of:
- Alerting users to convenient locations (hours & directions)
- Making them aware of care options, such as virtual care
- Offering one-tap access to digital scheduling platforms and telemedicine tools
- Helping guide members to ‘in-network’ options
Extend your brand with digital health tools that guide care decisions
Position the tools to extend your brand throughout each useful, guided experience, while driving your business objectives. Your customers will think of you each time they get answers to their questions. The Self Care tools build loyalty and keep you top-of-mind, even when your target audience is not within the walls of your organization.
Check out what we have to offer for these organization types …
Patient engagement solutions for children’s hospitals
Benefits to Your Children’s Hospital
Now more than ever, parents need trusted sources for healthcare advice at their fingertips. Parents often realize their child is sick after work, often after the office is closed. Weekends are often the busiest time for sports injuries, and the first signs of an earache commonly begin after the child has slept for a few hours. For each symptom scenario, parents and teens can turn to our self-care tools to begin their healthcare journey.
Our symptom checker can direct patient care, connecting users to the appropriate level of care such as your:
- Self-scheduling options from your website or patient portal
- Telehealth services or e-visits
- Facilities: Walk-In Centers, Urgent Cares, or Emergency Rooms
- Phone scheduling options in your clinics, primary care offices, or contact center
- Expert home care advice and guidance on monitoring symptoms
Whether you implement the web application, embed within your mobile engagement app or integrate within your patient portal, the tools will drive more value from your digital investments. Analytics from Children’s Hospitals demonstrate a solid return on investment (ROI), often greater than 10:1, showcasing the power of cost-effective healthcare solutions. See the case study below.
Benefits for Your Parents and Their Children
- Provides help with healthcare decisions, day or night
- Directs appropriate actions: if and when they need healthcare services
- Offers quick fixes for minor injuries and illnesses
- Directly connects to fulfillment: just one tap or click to reach the right resource
case study: using symptom care advice to support nurse triage
It’s been established that the Symptom Checker offers a self-service option for supporting healthcare decisions. It offloads a portion of callers who might otherwise use the nurse triage line. And it’s a popular digital tool for people who prefer using online resources and apps.
At a recent Healthcare Contact Center Conference, additional use cases were presented which benefit both nurse triage and primary care practices.
- MyChart/PHR integration: allows users to connect directly to self-scheduling from the Symptom Checker recommendation. This is very popular as health systems strive to make accessibility more efficient through more self-scheduling options: same day appointments, video visits, etc. The Symptom Checker can be positioned as a screen to guide appropriate appointment scheduling.
- After-call education: triage nurses can send a link to the Symptom Checker care advice for the same symptom assessed during the call.
- Consistent advice: it reinforces the symptom-specific care advice given during the call.
- Builds self-care skills: the advice can be referenced as often as needed by the patient or caregiver.
- Plain language: the advice is written at 6th grade health literacy, in English, Spanish and French-Canadian.
Patient engagement solutions for hospitals & health systems
Benefits for Hospitals
Our self care tools offer quick answers to a wealth of patient health questions: acute symptoms, behavior, first aid and dosage. The symptom checker supports healthcare decisions 24×7. It provides access to care advice, which is central to patient-centered, accountable care.
From the first sign of illness or injury, our symptom checker is directing patient flow to your:
- Physicians
- Scheduling options: online, in-portal, or contact center
- Facilities: walk-in clinics, urgent cares, emergency departments
- Services: telemedicine / video visits
The tools position your hospital as the trusted source of helpful advice. They place your patients at the center of care and strengthen your value-based initiatives.
And whether you implement the website version or within an engagement app, the tools will drive more value from your digital investments. Client analytics prove a solid return on investment (ROI); often greater than 10:1. See the case study below.
Benefits for your Patients
- Provides help with healthcare decisions, day or night
- Directs appropriate actions: if and when they need healthcare services
- Offers evidence-based care advice for minor injuries and illnesses
- Directly connects to care and fulfillment: just one tap or click to reach the right resource
case study: using symptom care advice to support nurse triage
It’s been established that the Symptom Checker offers a self-service option for supporting healthcare decisions. It offloads a portion of callers who might otherwise use the nurse triage line. And it’s a popular digital tool for people who prefer using online resources and apps.
At a recent Healthcare Contact Center Conference, additional use cases were presented which benefit both nurse triage and primary care practices.
- MyChart/PHR integration: allows users to connect directly to self-scheduling from the Symptom Checker recommendation. This is very popular as health systems strive to make accessibility more efficient through more self-scheduling options: same day appointments, video visits, etc. The Symptom Checker can be positioned as a screen to guide appropriate appointment scheduling.
- After-call education: triage nurses can send a link to the Symptom Checker care advice for the same symptom assessed during the call.
- Consistent advice: it reinforces the symptom-specific care advice given during the call.
- Builds self-care skills: the advice can be referenced as often as needed by the patient or caregiver.
- Plain language: the advice is written at 6th grade health literacy, in English, Spanish and French-Canadian.
Patient engagement solutions for health plans or employers
Offer convenience and savings
- Our self-care tools offer the convenience of decision support, 24 hours per day.
- The symptom checker complements your nurse advice line and offloads low-to-medium acuity calls.
- It directs members to the appropriate level of care: aligning the right time, right decision, and right in-network resource.
- Your custom instance will direct members to in-network locations, member services, directories, and web assets, as well as provide a direct connection to your nurse line, if desired.
- Using our digital healthcare solutions within your member portal will drive more value from your existing digital investments.
Key benefits for your members
The Self Care tools provide:
- Instant answers, at their fingertips
- Help with healthcare decisions
- Connections to the most appropriate, safe level of care (reducing ER overutilization); in-network connections are easily prioritized
- Care advice for managing minor injuries and illnesses on their own
Leverage your custom app or website to connect members to the right facilities and services, keeping any necessary utilization in-network.
Patient engagement solutions for physician practices
Our symptom checker benefits your patients and parents! It helps them understand how sick they are (or their child is) and decide on the best action, based upon current symptoms. The care advice helps them learn skills to manage minor illnesses and injuries at home, as needed.
The pediatric content is evidence-based, written by Dr. Barton Schmitt of telephone triage fame. The symptom checker is licensed by more than 500 pediatric practices. It was also selected by the American Academy of Pediatrics for use on the parenting website, healthychildren.org.
Key Benefits for Your Practice
- Offloads calls from your nurses and receptionists. Reduces after-hours calls. Helps your staff survive the demands of virus-season (Flu, COVID, RSV).
- Directs appropriate patients to call for appointments or schedule online.
- Creates loyalty! Patients and parents value this tool you are providing.
- Attracts 18-65 year-olds who prefer self-service.
- Quick and Easy! The website iFrame takes only 30 minutes to customize and install.
- Supplies evidence-based decision support vs. simply ‘Googling’ symptoms.
- Establishes Your Practice as the trusted source for healthcare advice.
- Drives more value from your website investment.
Key Benefits for Your Patients (and Parents)
- Provides help with healthcare decisions, especially after hours and on weekends.
- Directs appropriate actions: if, and when, they need to call their doctor or schedule an appointment.
- Builds self-care skills.
- Offers symptom relief for minor injuries and illnesses.
case study: encounter pattern for practices/hospitals
The graph below shows the encounter pattern typical for a practice or hospital. Higher utilization during virus season, with the number of symptom checks tapering during the summer months.
