Pro bono project improves healthcare for one of Portland, Oregon’s most vulnerable populations, the 3,800 people who sleep nightly on the city’s streets, shelters and temporary housing facilities.
Cleveland, OH, December 30, 2021 — Centric Consulting’s Modern Workplace and Healthcare practices recently helped a nonprofit organization, Portland Street Medicine (PSM), deploy and optimize Microsoft 365 to improve healthcare for Portland, Oregon’s unhoused population, one of the most challenging patient groups to serve.
“We are in the field of bringing healthcare to people wherever they are,” said PSM Executive Director Molly Pringle. “Without permanent addresses or other documentation, it is difficult to track our patients’ care over time and build supportive relationships with them.”
“Centric helped us launch to the next level in an amazing way, making use of the basic Microsoft tools we didn’t know we had access to,” Pringle continued. “That gave us more capacity for real-time care coordination, teams that were better able to collaborate using Microsoft Teams chat, and different file sharing capabilities. If we had stopped there, we would have considered it a success.”
However, Centric went further by helping PSM create several Power Automate flows to streamline the intake of patient information through Microsoft Teams, directly enabling the agency to provide better and more efficient care to people experiencing housing instability.
To illustrate how PSM and its patients benefit from Microsoft 365 and Teams, Pringle shared the story of one of their clients, “Joey.”
“When we first met Joey, he was complaining of a skin infection,” she said. “With Centric’s help, we entered this information on a Microsoft form instead of a paper form or other e-charting tools, which require customization and data points that are not always relevant to our teams or our clients.”
When Pringle’s team next saw Joey, they saw that his skin condition had worsened.
“We captured that data on the form and encouraged him to seek more intensive care,” Pringle continued. “The next time we see him, we will be able to access his history through the Microsoft form, allowing us to follow his case better and make sure he is getting the care he needs.”
Tracking patients with Microsoft forms within Microsoft 365 also allows PSM to categorize the cases they see on the street. For example, over the next three months PSM documented that soft-tissue issues such as Joey’s comprise 60 percent of their cases.
“It makes us really agile and allows us to create a more targeted program,” Pringle said.
Microsoft Teams also made it easier for team members to conduct day-to-day administrative check-ins, conversations, meetings and more over chat.
“These improvements have been both innovative and transformative for Portland Street Medicine,” Pringle said. “They will allow us to grow over time and to continue innovating in ways that that would have been pushing the limits of our old platform.
With Centric’s help, PSM is now exploring the Salesforce Health Cloud, a customer relationship management tool for the healthcare and life sciences industries.
“We are actively exploring and delivering valuable innovations within the Healthcare industry,” said Centric Healthcare National Lead Marcie Stoshak-Chavez, MD. “It was a privilege to learn alongside PSM as we helped simplify the collaboration and business processes for their mobile care providers and significantly improved the overall efficiency and effectiveness of their services to increase their outreach to the homeless. For our next step, we hope to add more functionality for Care Management with the addition of Microsoft Dynamics.”
About Centric Consulting
Centric Consulting is a management consulting firm that guides you in the search for answers to complex digital, business and technology problems by asking tough questions, leading crucial conversations and blending our experts with yours. As you go where you want to grow, we can help you conquer change, optimize processes, elevate your technology, and compete in a digital world.
Headquartered in Ohio, with locations across the country and India, Centric has been honored over the years with awards for its commitment to employees, clients and communities. Most recently, the firm was recognized as one of Fast Company’s 100 Best Workplaces for Innovators.
Visit http://www.centricconsulting.com to learn more. Connect with us: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
About Portland Street Medicine
Portland Street Medicine’s mission is to be the frontline of improving the healthcare of unhoused people in Portland, Oregon. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit is a coalition of volunteer medical providers, social workers, care managers, and lay people dedicated to reaching Portland’s most forgotten citizens. Portland Street Medicine cares for those who are unhoused or at risk of becoming unhoused, providing acute medical care and essential primary care, addressing clinical priorities and building trust. Its staff and volunteers collaborate with a broad spectrum of organizations in the regional governmental, nonprofit and health system sectors to serve not only patients, but also providers. Portland Street Medicine is committed to an integrated, collaborative approach as it engages with the community as a beacon of Portland’s spirit of innovation, open mindedness, and ability to solve problems honestly and directly.
Visit http://www.portlandstreetmedicine.org/ to learn more.