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An important part of monitoring health and managing conditions over time is completing any required labs before you see your doctor.
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With a new tool in the app, Providence is making it easier to complete your required labs and stay on top of your health care journey.
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Learn how these new tools can make finding and scheduling lab appointments easier than ever.
Getting blood drawn doesn’t have to be a pain – well, beyond the initial prick. The Providence Digital Innovation Group (DIG) is making getting your required labs a little easier with new features in the Providence app. This fall, Providence is rolling out new in-app notifications to alert you when your provider has ordered lab tests and help you find a location and book an appointment to ease your health care journey.
From lipid panels that measure cholesterol to complete blood counts that look for infections and other conditions, staying up to date on your lab work is an important part of preventive care. These labs can also help your caregiver diagnose different conditions and treat you better, faster. However, Providence learned that completing these labs wasn’t always as easy or convenient as it should be for patients.
“Patients often don’t know where they can go to complete their labs, so they end up calling their doctor’s office to see where they should go, which is not a smooth experience for them,” says Christina DiFerdinando, director of product operations for Providence’s Digital Innovation Group. “The goal is to make it easy for patients to know when they have labs due and find locations near them to complete testing.”
Blood draws on your time
Providence partners with LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics for labs. You can also have blood drawn at different Providence locations. Providence caregivers may send patients to complete labs at any of these locations, which can make it confusing to know where to go. The Providence app takes away this confusion by showing you the right places to get lab work at the right time.
“We saw that patients were not completing their lab tests before upcoming appointments and would have to reschedule,” says DiFerdinando. “And because clinics didn’t always know the business hours from the different lab locations, caregivers would spend a lot of time calling around to help coordinate appointments for their patients.”
When you have labs due with LabCorp or within the Providence network, you’ll get a push notification to your phone and a popup notification when you open the Providence app. That notification will tell you what labs you are due for, which provider ordered them, and the most convenient locations near you to schedule them. If you click on the recommended location, you’ll see dates and times of available appointments and can schedule directly. If you’re logged in, the app will autofill your details to make scheduling easier. It will also share a reminder to check in 24 hours before your appointment.
The app is making it easier to schedule the full spectrum of lab services, including common blood tests like:
- Complete blood counts
- Glucose tests
- Hemoglobin A1C
- Lipid panels
- Liver function tests
- Metabolic panels
- Thyroid function tests
You can view your results in the Providence app or MyChart once your physician has reviewed them.
Partnering for better lab experiences
Bringing this benefit to patients meant collaborating with technology teams at LabCorp. This new feature was the first integration with LabCorp in the Providence app, and product experts partnered to display information in a patient-friendly way so they could manage their booking experience all within the app.
“Lab scheduling is an example of how we can partner with other health care partners to create a complete experience for patients that makes it easier for them to manage their care all in one place,” says DiFerdinando. “We’re now looking at how we can provide this same level of care with other services, including physical therapy, remote monitoring and more.”
In addition to scheduling lab appointments, the Providence app offers features to support you throughout your health care journey. These include:
- 24/7 access to health information
- Access to the Grace smart assistant, which can help you refill prescriptions, schedule appointments and find other resources
- Appointment scheduling and check-in
- Immunization reminders
- Personalized recommendations and self-serve content tailored to your health history
- Provider search tools for doctors and specialists
- Reminders for upcoming screenings and appointments
Contributing caregiver
Christina DiFerdinando is the director of product operations for Providence’s Digital Innovation Group.
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Download the Providence app
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Related resources
Digital in action: Improving patient navigation with Grace
Digital in action: Why you’ll want to download the Providence app
Download the Providence app for care at your fingertips
This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical care. Always follow your health care professional’s instructions.
