ApolloMD
Improving Patient Experience through Innovative Processes

Evan Howell, PA-C, Chief Clinical Operations Officer and Chief Advanced Practice Clinician,LaDawn Bradley, RN, National Director of Patient Experience, ApolloMD

ApolloMD makes a significant difference in the patient experience by taking a holistic approach to patient care and prioritizing personalized connections with individual hospitals. Its response to the COVID-19 pandemic is an excellent example of how its team of physicians and advanced practice clinicians continued delivering emergency and hospital medicine in the face of the unprecedented changes brought on by the global catastrophe. During the pandemic, ApolloMD heavily relied on virtual meetings via Zoom, but resumed in-person meetings as soon as circumstances allowed.

This goes on to show how ApolloMD does not hesitate to redesign its program offerings to address the everchanging realities of hospital-based health care delivery and better support patients and clients. It recognizes that while the challenges faced by health care organizations today are universal, the ways in which they impact individual hospitals can significantly differ. In line with this, ApolloMD’s Clinical Operations Division takes a personalized approach to gain a full understanding of each facility’s difficulties and designs customized solutions that meet their unique patient care needs.

“We work collaboratively with both clinicians and hospital leadership teams to address patient experience needs at a personal level,” says LaDawn Bradley, RN, National director of patient experience, ApolloMD.

In the current post-pandemic era, three major challenges continue to impact patient experience across all hospitals. The pandemic took an enormous physical and emotional toll on every health care worker. The second challenge is the pervasive staffing shortages that continue to affect hospital and communitybased aftercare networks. Lastly, there are multifactorial barriers to efficient patient throughput in the new landscape left behind by the pandemic.

To tackle these challenges, ApolloMD takes an approach that prioritizes its team’s wellness, making them feel supported.

ApolloMD is simultaneously dedicated to addressing the pervasive staffing shortage challenge through its clinical operations team. The team collaborates with every hospital stakeholder to design processes that extend the current staffing matrices. This team applies the same patient experience methodology and approach to tackle operations issues. Data analytics plays a crucial role in the team’s prescriptive approach to tackling these challenges. In addition, ApolloMD takes a highly creative approach to solving every problem, from space utilization to current staffing matrices for developing more innovative care delivery systems.

In one instance, ApolloMD piloted a program for a hospital in response to the staffing challenges in their emergency room caused by the pandemic. The program involved placing one of ApolloMD’s staff as a liaison between patients and the care team. They were responsible for checking in on the patients, making them comfortable, and answering any questions they may have. It immediately boosted patient experience ratings at the hospital, and the program was subsequently implemented in multiple sites.

We work collaboratively with both clinicians and hospital leadership teams to address patient experience needs at a personal level

The Commitment to Care program is a 10- week immersive program, which focuses on training every stakeholder in the hospital to provide a consistent patient experience. Other basic boot camps provide a safe environment for providers and nursing staff to collaborate. Practice drills and role reversal helps every stakeholder understand how things are perceived from different angles of care. Together with that, ApolloMD provides new process education, implementation, and scripting, as well as patient experience training designed to prepare residents for success in independent practice.
“One of the reasons we are always able to showcase these outstanding results is because we have a unique performance-based compensation structure that ensures everyone in the organization is motivated to achieve optimal clinical outcomes, quality, efficiency, and patient experience,” says Evan Howell, PA-C, chief clinical operations officer and chief advanced practice clinician, ApolloMD.

These factors combine to help ApolloMD build a health care ecosystem dedicated to providing personalized, streamlined care that puts patients first.