Pacific University Turns to Morlen Health, created by Northwest Permanente, PC and Datos Health to Mitigate Pandemic Effects.

Morlen Health is committed to transforming the practice of medicine and the delivery of 21st-century healthcare solutions. Morlen Health was created by the physicians of Northwest Permanente PC, a large independent multi-specialty physician group in Portland, Oregon, to innovate, enhance and empower healthcare solutions for their patients and communities.

Founded in 1849, Pacific University is a diverse learning community offering a unique combination of nationally recognized undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs in the arts and sciences, education, business, optometry, and the health professions. With four campuses in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, the university has over 3,500 students and 1,200 employees.

The Challenge

At the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Pacific University’s top priority was to keep students and faculty safe in order to continue in-person learning. To manage the complex and constantly changing CDC guidelines, the University turned to Morlen Health for assistance in translating CDC guidelines into clear workflows. However, both organizations needed a remote patient engagement platform that could implement these workflows. The platform needed to be highly automated to enable close monitoring of thousands of students and faculty, yet flexible enough to handle guideline changes quickly and effectively.

The Solution

Morlen Health chose Datos Health as its partner for developing its Covid-19 Navigator application to ensure faculty, students, and staff at Pacific University were safely monitored while following all CDC guidelines.

Morlen Health worked closely with Datos Health and the University to develop and implement CDC-compliant workflows on Datos Health’s Open Care platform. Infectious disease experts from Morlen Health’s sponsoring physician group provided the clinical expertise to navigate the ever-changing CDC guidelines, and Datos was able to quickly implement these changes on their platform. Designed to gauge and capture symptoms, illnesses, and vaccine reactions, the app engages users with short, highly interactive questionnaires, supported by Datos Health’s powerful rules engine to assess and provide automated triage and case management based on reported symptoms, test results, and potential exposures. In addition to offering suggestions for enhancing personal safety from the virus, Datos Health’s robust system provides automated assisted self-care to users expressing indications of infection – guiding them to quarantine or test, and simultaneously informing campus health authorities.

“Datos Health was the logical partner for this project because of its track record of high-quality care monitoring and adaptive technology infrastructure.”

Dr. Micah Thorp, DO, Vice President of Strategy, Northwest Permanente PC, and President, Morlen Health

The Benefits

By leveraging Datos Health’s high-frequency yet low-touch platform, the app helped Pacific University drastically decrease labor overhead previously associated with screening students, faculty, and staff by 90% – from 15 FTEs to just two. Moreover, with the app’s daily self-screening functionality, Pacific University was able to shorten the classroom entry process from 35-45 minutes to just seconds – helping streamline the frontal learning experience and protect the community. Owing to their uniquely rapid response to dynamic pandemic demands, Pacific University showed some of the lowest positive Covid test rates in the region.

The flexibility of both Datos Health and Morlen Health to rapidly evolve its Navigator service to quickly adapt to emerging CDC guidelines ensured that students, faculty, and staff remained in full compliance with risk mitigation and standardized protocols. The app together with its comprehensive solution also enabled Morlen Health and the University to optimize health and wellness resources based on real-time student and faculty responses and data – prioritizing the provision of care, food services, and even mental health intervention. Most importantly, the Covid-19 Navigator app dramatically enhanced the feeling of safety on campus for both students and faculty – helping them retain a semblance of normalcy in a dire situation. Now as Covid winds down across the country, Pacific University is looking to utilize the app to help them achieve their population health goals.