Yes, it can. When patients are followed up regularly using automated SMS check-ins, they stay more closely connected to their primary care providers. This proactive communication helps address health concerns early, before they escalate into urgent or emergency situations.

The impact can be measured by tracking where patients seek follow-up care. A higher proportion of issues resolved through outpatient care, and fewer visits to ER or urgent care, indicates reduced burden on the emergency system and more effective day-to-day care management.

Because ER teams, even virtually, are still reactive, stepping in only once a crisis has begun. WelTel shifts the model entirely by keeping patients connected to their own care providers, enabling earlier intervention. With simple, proactive check-ins, issues can be identified and addressed before they escalate to emergencies, preventing avoidable ER visits and improving continuity of care.

In the ER setting, messaging patients wouldn't fall to emergency physicians, as it's typically outside their scope and capacity. Instead, this role is best suited to a designated transitions-of-care team member, often a nurse, care manager lead (CML), or discharge coordinator.

These individuals are already involved in supporting patients as they transition back to the community. WelTel can help extend their reach, allowing them to provide follow-up support via simple messaging until the patient is reconnected with their primary care provider. This approach ensures continuity of care without adding unnecessary burden to frontline ER staff.

While we don’t yet have direct data showing that WelTel increases patient onboarding capacity in primary care specifically, evidence from other healthcare settings is promising.

In STI clinics, a single nurse using WelTel was able to efficiently manage over 1,000 patients through SMS communication. Similarly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, public health teams monitoring cases via WelTel’s automated texting system were able to support significantly more patients with fewer staff compared to traditional call-center models.

Pediatrics diabetes teams were able to increase their patient load by > 15% without adding additional healthcare providers or support staff. 

These results suggest that WelTel’s automated, text-based follow-up and powerful AI-triage for prioritized follow-up can be 100 up to 1000 times more efficient than phone calls or voicemail, and this efficiency can likely be applied to primary care, freeing up providers’ time and expanding their ability to support larger patient panels.

WelTel streamlines patient follow-up by enabling concise, efficient communication through SMS and other integrated modalities. Compared to emails or phone calls, brief text messages are faster to review and respond to, saving healthcare teams valuable time. When a text message alone isn’t enough, WelTel’s additional features allow for seamless escalation to more comprehensive support, ensuring patients receive the care they need promptly.

WelTel’s system focuses attention on patients who indicate they need support, reducing time spent on routine check-ins for those doing well. This targeted approach allows care teams to prioritize patients who require more immediate attention, improving overall efficiency.

Additionally, AI-supported triage helps identify and prioritize messages, further optimizing workflow and ensuring timely responses.

WelTel helps healthcare providers prioritize their time and resources by focusing attention on patients who need support most, right when they need it. Routine follow-up for stable patients who are doing well is streamlined, reducing unnecessary workload and allowing care teams to allocate efforts more efficiently and effectively.

WelTel helps reduce wait times by enabling healthcare teams to address patient concerns promptly through brief, focused interactions. By managing issues in smaller, more efficient steps via messaging, many problems can be resolved without the need for lengthy in-person appointments, freeing up consultation slots for patients who truly need them.

WelTel is designed with flexibility and innovation at its core. Its front-end interface is highly configurable, allowing healthcare teams to customize text templates and workflows to meet current priorities and patient needs.

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On the back end, WelTel continuously advances through data science and AI innovations, such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) that analyzes text conversations to better understand patient concerns. These capabilities also enable predictive analytics to identify early warning signs of potential health issues, allowing providers to intervene proactively and prevent crises.