Health System Cardiovascular Community Outreach Screenings

Partnering With A Third-Party Provider To Extend Geographic Reach

Basic Biometric Cardiovascular Community Screenings

Many single and multi-hospital health systems provide a variety of cardiovascular risk assessment screenings to the community. Common biometric offerings include a comprehensive metabolic panel, lipid panel, blood pressure screening and body mass index (BMI) computation. These screenings, provided at little or no cost to the consumer, offer a very beneficial health service to the community while also, at the same time, enhancing the system brand through increased exposure and visibility within their service area. However, given the group nature of community screenings (i.e. held at community centers, senior centers, etc.), the “loop” is often not closed on those that participate i.e. individuals whose results might indicate potential risk are often not being navigated back into the health system for additional tests or follow up care.

Advanced, Fixed-Site Biometric Cardiovascular Screenings

Some health systems have begun to expand their screenings to include more advanced disease assessment testing, offered on a cash (versus insurance) basis, to identify asymptomatic individuals that might be at risk for serious cardiovascular related issues such as heart disease, stroke, carotid artery disease, peripheral vascular disease and the presence of an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Tests offered often include cardiac related lab work along with an EKG, screening Echo, screening carotid artery exam, ankle brachial index (ABI) and an abdominal aortic aneurysm ultrasound screening test. The tests provide an excellent assessment of cardiovascular health and can identify clinical conditions unbeknown to the asymptomatic participant, some of whom will require additional follow up, treatment or monitoring. Testing is typically offered on the hospital campus or in the system’s cardiovascular practice offices. The physical locations for the advanced biometric screenings can present a limitation for health systems however in that they may not provide the convenience within their entire service area to attract their target population where they live and work. The fixed site physical locations may also be an impediment to reaching the population of surrounding, adjacent communities outside their primary service area because of the drive-time factor. Additional challenges for the health system also include the often limited capacity of testing times and the dilemma of finding technologists that are trained in both echocardiography and vascular studies.

Basic and Advanced, Mobile and Community Center-Based Biometric Cardiovascular Screenings

A rapidly growing opportunity for health systems to serve their communities and extend their geographic reach is to partner with a third-party provider which offers basic and advanced cardiovascular biometric screening. Cardiovascular screenings are currently being offered by several nationally recognized health systems, in partnership with third party organizations, and can provide significant benefits:

• No capital investment
• Extends the health system’s geographic reach
• Exclusivity within a defined market area
• Consumer convenience (testing available at multiple sites and times)
• Third-party provider “turn-key” infrastructure including staffing, supplies, equipment, logistics, call center, test interpretation, patient results reporting, scheduling and testing site selection
• Direct-to-consumer advertising regarding screening events 
• Ability to expand into corporate wellness and prevention screenings

National Cardiovascular Screening Providers

The two major providers of basic and advanced biometric cardiovascular screenings are HealthFair and Life Line Screening. The following is an overview of each company, their screenings and hospital partnerships.

HealthFair

HealthFair (www.healthfair.com ), based in Winter Park, FL was founded in 1998 and is accredited by the Joint Commission. The company has a fleet of 40’ mobile health coaches offering screenings in 43 states. Each customized coach is equipped with a reception area and two examination rooms.

The company offers a Basic Biometric Screening package including a finger stick blood test, BP, height/weight/waist measurements, Body Mass Index (BMI), and a risk assessment questionnaire. Results are immediately available and the patient receives a personalized health report that compares their values versus norms, calculates the risk of disease onset and identifies those risks which are modifiable. The company’s Advanced Biometric Screening package includes an echocardiogram, a 12-lead EKG, carotid artery ultrasound, abdominal aortic aneurysm ultrasound, an ABI and ASI. Additional screening services such as 3D breast ultrasound, PSA and osteoporosis ultrasound testing are also available.

HealthFair takes responsibility for securing the screening sites for its mobile medical units (e.g. parking lots at corporations, community centers, retail pharmacies, etc.), direct-to-consumer advertising, centralized or online patient scheduling, clinical staffing for the screening event and results interpretation and reporting. The company has a panel of seven reading physicians. Physician interpretation is accomplished through a mobile EMR platform. Patients receive a printed report with a description of each test, their results and disease information.

The company has partnered with several hospitals and health systems around the country to provide basic and advanced biometric cardiovascular screenings (e.g. Baylor Health Care System, Oklahoma Heart Hospital, Loyola Medicine, Inova, Indiana Heart Hospital, Jefferson University Hospitals, HCA Midwest Health System, Broward Health, etc.). Depending on the committed number of service days per month for the mobile medical unit, the partnerships can include a wrapped, “branded” health system 40’ customized bus along with multi-media, co-branded consumer advertising including full page print ads, television and radio commercials, a branded landing page, social media marketing and pay-per-click and banner advertising. The company charges a daily service fee which includes all costs associated with the screening events and the multi-media advertising campaign. Geographic exclusivity is provided to their hospital partners.

Through the partnership, a hospital Care Coordinator can review participant results through the HealthFair mobile EMR portal (for participants that sign HIPAA releases on the day of the screening) and subsequently contact those patients needing follow up, navigating them to the appropriate clinical care provider within the health system.

HealthFair has partnered to provide screenings with notable corporate clients such as Ford, Tropicana and Lincoln Financial Group among others The company will also promote the hospital partnership and screenings to local businesses in the health systems’ market as a supplement to the corporations wellness programs, taking responsibility for securing the corporate contracts and the logistics associated with coordinating the company screening event.

HealthFair has also recently introduced a program to screen high school student-athletes in partnership with a nationally recognized health system in the Southwest.

Life Line Screening

Life Line Screening (www.lifelinescreening.com ) was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Independence, OH. The company has screened over 6 million people since its inception and they are currently performing over 1 million screenings annually, with operations in the United States, United Kingdom and, in the near future, also in Australia. Life Line Screening does not provide mobile medical units but rather partners with hospitals, medical practices and facilities such as churches, community centers, town halls and libraries to host screening events in their buildings. Its labs are CLIA-certified.

Life Line Screening offers a similar basic risk assessment screening to HealthFair and provides a personal results report to participants at the time of service. The report includes a disease risk score along with non-modifiable and modifiable risk factors affecting the score for stroke, diabetes, coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure, lung cancer and COPD.  Its advanced biometric screening, their Stroke, Vascular and Heart Rhythm package, includes a carotid artery ultrasound, abdominal aorta aneurysm ultrasound, an ABI and a 6- lead EKG. An additional option includes osteoporosis ultrasound screening. Lab packages (e.g. comprehensive metabolic panel, lipid panel, kidney function, PSA, C-Reactive protein, etc.) are also available through a Life Line Screening partnership with Lab Corp.

Life Line Screening promotes their community-based screenings to the consumer   through their website and by direct mail and newspaper inserts. The company is the largest direct mail provider in the country outside of the financial services sector. Consumers can schedule a screening either online or through a dedicated call center. The company secures the host community screening site and provides the equipment and technologists for the event. The screenings are interpreted by a panel of eleven physicians. Patients receive their results directly from Life Line, either online or by mail, within twenty-one days of the screening and are encouraged to share them with their physician (i.e. medical providers do not receive patient results unless they are requested by the patients’ physician).

The company has partnered with over 300 hospitals (e.g. Memorial Hermann, Arizona Heart Institute, University of Maryland Medical Center, Memorial Care Heart and Vascular Institute, Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, Christus, St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, George Washington University Hospital, Berkshire Medical Center, etc.) to provide basic and advanced biometric screenings to the respective communities, with the events hosted at the hospital or local churches or town centers. The company develops a specific, customized plan for each hospital partner based on their expressed needs and goals, including a co-branding strategy (e.g. print, video) and potential educational opportunities along with identifying the number and location of screening events for the year. The partnerships are one year agreements and provide geographic exclusivity. There is no financial obligation to the health system for the partnership with Life Line Screening. 

Life Line Screening provides its hospital partners with aggregate data for the community that is identified through the screenings (e.g. community incidence of diabetes) which can be used by the system to target its marketing and educational initiatives. Additionally, every two weeks hospital partners receive the screening results for those participants who have signed a HIPAA release, providing the health system with the opportunity to follow up post-screening.             

Life Line Screening has additional national partnerships with insurance companies, benefit providers, associations and corporations. They typically do not market to employers within a health systems service area.

Summary

Cardiovascular community screenings provide the opportunity to identify clinical conditions before the asymptomatic individual experiences an event, placing them in the ER, and also enables the implementation of life style improvement strategies in those with identified, modifiable risks. Basic biometric screenings are offered by health systems within their communities but they do not consistently navigate the consumers needing follow up care back to services within the hospital. Advanced biometric screenings offered by health systems provide more specific disease assessment testing but are often limited by geographic locations where testing is delivered and by available screening times. Partnering with a provider of basic and advanced cardiovascular biometric testing may extend a health system’s geographic reach, eliminate the constraints posed by fixed-site hospital cardiovascular screening initiatives and expand   involvement into corporate wellness programs.

For Further Information Contact: cvscreenings@gmail.com