May 13, 2020
Dear NowPow Partners,
As COVID-19 stretches both our health systems and our human and social service organizations, we are continuing to work on ways to extend care.
Together with you, we are focused on making sure as many people as possible are able to find and access support during this time of rising need.
Two of our customers who exemplify what it means to care intensively for the communities we serve – Healthfirst and Rush University Medical Center – recently shared their NowPow stories with Fierce Healthcare: How organizations are addressing social determinants of health amid COVID-19.
Here’s an update on the actions we’ve been taking:
We’re making our platform meaningful right now.
Rapid Resource Verification: Our platform now knows the current COVID-19 operating status for more than 45,000 vital emergency services in the nation’s hardest hit areas, thanks to the rigorous and rolling work of our Community Resources team.
COVID-19 Impact Screening: We created a free evidence-based screening that allows users to quickly identify essential needs related to the adverse impact of COVID-19 and automatically map those needs to highly matched vital emergency services NowPow has validated as open and operating right now.
We’re getting our referral tools into as many hands as possible.
Community-Based Organizations: We added our text/email functionality and our COVID-19 screening to our FREE referral tool for CBOs (CommRx) and we created a CommRx Connector ToolBx to help people spread the word about CommRx.
Rapid Sign-On: We made it easy for our customers and partners to scale use of our mobile, one-way referral tool (NowRx) to new users by simply sharing a secure link that directs them to quickly sign on, watch a short training video, and start making referrals. Customers are also offering the tool to their own employees to use for themselves and the people they love in this time of rising need.
NowPow APIs: If you are using chatbots, remote monitoring or telehealth solutions to support your patients or members, we can supercharge them with our NowPow APIs.
We’re making our data actionable and available.
NowPow COVID-19 Maps: We just released the first in a series of interactive COVID-19 Maps to track how community resource availability is changing over time by ZIP code. These hyperlocal maps currently focus on food resources in the nation’s hardest hit areas. Click here
COVID-19 Resource Insights: NowPow customers also have access to weekly regional resource availability reporting to share with other community stakeholders.
We know you’re making tremendous efforts to keep our communities updated and connected to vital resources during this national crisis.
We are grateful for you and here to support you,
Stacy Lindau, MD, MAPP, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer
Rachel Kohler, CEO
March 24th, 2020
Dear NowPow Partners,
In this turbulent time, our work – helping people find and connect to the right community resources – has never been more important. Not only can it help ensure people’s health and economic needs are met, it can also help relieve the strain on our healthcare system.
NowPow is working to get our personalized community referral platform into the hands of as many care providers, rapid responders and volunteers as possible. And we’re doing this without compromising on referral quality.
We believe referral quality matters now more than ever. We must ensure no one is directed to resources that are unable to serve them.
After meeting with city and business leaders, health systems, health plans, community partners and public agencies across the country, we undertook these 5 actions to make the greatest and most immediate impact during this crisis:
1. Be Focused
We identified Vital Emergency Resource (VER) services to prioritize those most critical to community health and economic stability right now. We did this using our own information and analytics as well as incorporating 311 search insights and FEMA Recovering from Disaster guidelines.
2. Be Clear
We created filterable COVID-19 Status Tags within our technology so users know their referral will have the highest likelihood of success. Referrers can see if community organizations offering VER services are operating regularly, doing delivery, pickup or virtual/phone services, or if services are currently unavailable.
3. Be Current
We initiated a Rapid Resource Verification process, so our platform reflects the most up-to-date COVID-19 information possible for VER services. By the end of this week, we will have updated key geographies in New York, New Jersey and Illinois. We are developing a framework that will then be duplicated in our other geographies.
4. Be Easy
We expanded the functionality for our free tool for community-based organizations in our geographies to make it easy to extend care. Now these organizations can text or email people to quickly refer services they may not provide. (Email engagement@nowpow.com to learn more.)
5. Be Scalable
We quickly took actions to scale our mobile one-way referral tool to large groups of care responders and volunteers by offering expedited onboarding and virtual training. Used with or without a screening, users can find and connect people to highly matched resources. We are also creating a self-registration link for easier user access. (Email more@nowpow.com to learn more.)
For more information about our response to COVID-19, visit www.nowpow.com/covid19. We will regularly update this page as we continue our work to ensure and expand access to high-quality referrals.
In the days and weeks ahead, we’ll also share information about how we’re responding to the call by city and business leaders to function as part of the critical front-line response in some of our nation’s hardest hit regions.
Most importantly, we send our gratitude to everyone who is making sacrifices to serve during this crisis.
Thank you for your continued support,
Stacy Lindau, MD, MAPP, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer
Rachel Kohler, CEO