Removing Barriers to Patient Communication: Beyond the Patient Portal

Healthcare organizations have made significant investments in digital communication through patient portals, giving patients secure access to appointments, test results, care plans, and messaging with their care teams.

For many healthcare organizations using Epic software, patient portals play an important role in patient engagement. However, portal-based communication alone may not support every patient who needs ongoing education, reminders, care coordination, or follow-up support.

Many patients still do not regularly engage through portal-based communication. Some have never completed portal enrollment. Others may not remember login credentials, have limited internet access, or simply prefer the convenience of text messaging. As a result, healthcare organizations often struggle to reach every patient with timely reminders, care coordination, education, and follow-up support, and this lack of follow-through costs more than dollars.

Expanding Communication Options

Meeting patients where they already communicate can help close this engagement gap.

GoMo Chat is a HITRUST Risk-based (r2) Certified, HIPAA-compliant communication platform built on Microsoft Azure that enables healthcare organizations to communicate with patients, members, and caregivers using standard SMS text messaging, eliminating the need for app downloads or patient portal logins. Care teams manage conversations through a secure web-based dashboard that supports live messaging, response templates, escalation workflows, broadcast messaging, and reporting.

The experience is intentionally simple for patients while providing healthcare organizations with secure communication tools that fit naturally into existing operational workflows, including environments built around Epic software and other electronic health record systems.

Designed to Complement Existing Clinical Workflows

Healthcare organizations rely on their electronic health record systems as the foundation of patient care.

For organizations using Epic software, GoMo Chat is designed to integrate easily through standards-based interoperability and extend secure patient communication while supporting established clinical processes.

As part of its interoperability roadmap, GoMo Health delivers FHIR® R4-based integration designed to support healthcare organizations by:

• Synchronizing patient demographic and contact information to streamline enrollment into communication programs.
• Writing GoMo Chat communication records back to the electronic health record to support more complete documentation of patient interactions.
• Creating workflow tasks when predefined escalation criteria are met, helping care teams respond within their existing clinical workflows.

The integration helps healthcare organizations maintain more connected patient records while extending secure patient communication through standards-based interoperability.

Reaching More Patients

Portal-based communication remains an important part of modern healthcare delivery, particularly for patients who actively use patient portals such as MyChart. For those who don’t, healthcare organizations benefit from additional communication options.

By expanding secure communication through standard SMS messaging, GoMo Chat helps organizations improve outreach, strengthen patient participation, and support more connected care experiences while preserving existing clinical workflows.

As healthcare interoperability continues to evolve, healthcare organizations are increasingly seeking communication solutions that work alongside Epic software and other electronic health record systems while making it easier to connect with every patient—not just those who actively use a patient portal. By extending secure communication through standards-based interoperability, GoMo Chat helps organizations engage broader patient populations while preserving existing clinical workflows.

 

Epic and MyChart are registered trademarks of Epic Systems Corporation