How Bridge Partners with Health By Design to Streamline Complexity Through Automation and Customization
- The Bridge Team
- May 04, 2026
Creating a Structurally Leaner Administrative Model for Clinics
About Health By Design
San Antonio-based Health By Design operates a network of primary care clinics in Texas and New Mexico, with a new location expected to open in Virginia in 2026. It works directly with employer groups to transform health and wellness through engaging, outcomes-driven, cost-effective care that is centered on the needs of individual patients.
The Challenge
Health By Design was using multiple different patient engagement platforms, with separate systems to handle patient portal, intake, telehealth, executive concierge exams, and SMS messaging. Some of this incongruity resulted from acquiring new clinic practices and their existing systems, but the disparity only added complexity and didn’t provide them with all the capabilities they needed.
“We serve three different client populations, and each one of them was using a separate platform, so that was definitely very difficult,” according to Health By Design personnel who work on EHR training and new clinic implementation for the company. “Some of the platforms that we were using were very user-friendly, and some weren’t.”
The company was looking to ease its administrative headache by consolidating the disparate platforms into a single, comprehensive solution. Ideally, it would encompass a patient portal, a communication platform where patients, clinicians, and staff could message each other, and a self-scheduling module that would help cut down on the number of phone calls staffers had to make to book and confirm appointments and share lab results.
Lastly, the company uses Elation for its EHR system. It needed a vendor that knew that platform intimately and offered solutions that could operate seamlessly with the technology that runs it.
The Solution
Health By Design turned to Bridge, which has extensive experience working with Elation EHR, for its patient engagement needs. The company went live in mid-2024 with three BridgeInteract modules:
- Patient portal, which offers rich functionality for accessing medical records, secure patient-provider and patient-staff messaging, managing caregivers and dependents, user authentication, and more
- Intake, allowing practices to send digital patient forms, collect required information before appointments, and streamline registration workflows
- Self-scheduling appointments, including the ability for patients to book appointments online based on real-time provider availability
- Notifications, including automated appointment reminders, intake reminders, and general portal notifications delivered via email, SMS, or interactive voice response (IVR)
- Two-way texting, allowing patients and clinic staff to communicate easily and reduces manual phone calls
- Mobile app, providing patients with a branded mobile experience to easily access portal services
Patients also benefit from using a branded mobile app to access these services.
The Results: A Measurable Return on Experience
BridgeInteract has delivered significant operational benefits for Health By Design, which continues to integrate the platform across its network of clinics.
By automating routine interactions, Bridge returns between 2,800 and 4,700 hours annually to the HBD care team. This allows the practice to shift focus from administrative data entry and busywork to high-value patient support.
The largest time-saving contributors are:
- SMS appointment confirmations: 841 to 1,262 hours
- Portal messages + two-way SMS: 1,110 to 1,778 hours
Bridge creates a structurally leaner administrative model, helping alleviate administrative burden and staff burnout. The estimated staff time savings by indicator are shown below.
| Indicator | Period used | Volume applied | Savings assumption | Calculation applied | Minutes saved (Range) | Hours saved (Range) | Comment/assumption reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Self-Scheduling | Last year | 189 appointments | 10–15 min per appointment | 189 × 10 to 15 min | 1,890 – 2,835 | 31.5 – 47.25 h | Counts only appointments booked directly by patients via the portal; assumes each replaced a staff-handled scheduling call. |
| SMS Confirmations | Last year | 6,308 appointments | 8–12 min per patient | 6,308h × 8 to 12 min | 50,464 – 75,696 | 841.1 – 1,261.6 h | Includes all appointments that were either confirmed OR cancelled via SMS. Assumes these would otherwise have required a manual staff call. |
| Portal Messages + SMS (Two-way text) | Last year | 11,532 messages + 1,800 sms | 5–8 min per message | (11,532 + 1,800) × 5 to 8 min | 66,660 – 106,656 | 1,110 – 1,777.6 h | Assumes these interactions replaced phone calls or voicemails that would have required comparable staff time. |
| Eligibility File Workflow | Since go-live | 9,578 patients | 5–10 min per patient | 9,578 × 5 to 10 min | 47,890 – 95,780 | 798.2 – 1,596.3 h | Reflects time avoided for manual account creation plus individual welcome email sending. |
| 👉 TOTAL (All indicators) | — | — | — | Sum of rows above | 166,904 – 280,967 | ~2,781 – 4,683 h | Totals aggregate all four use cases; ranges reflect minimum–maximum time assumptions. |
Custom Workflows
In addition to freeing up staff for higher-value tasks such as complex case management or in-person patient support, Health By Design benefits from Bridge’s platform flexibility and its ability to design custom solutions.
Unfamiliar phone numbers
When patients contacted Health By Design from a new phone number not listed on file, staff previously had no way to easily identify them. With BridgeInteract, clinic staff can now message them properly and update the information on their electronic chart. Bridge worked with Health By Design to come up with custom workflows to ensure that every patient is heard.
Message routing
Health By Design also worked with Bridge to ensure that nurses could access messages and self-scheduling requests from patients without disruption. Bridge worked with Health By Design to convert the nurses’ roles in Elation to staff members so they would receive these communications, enjoy expanded functionality, and ensure that messages sent using Bridge would properly route to the EHR.
Eligibility files
Bridge developed a custom eligibility workflow that allows HBD to generate a single file containing all required patient information, including demographics, location, and employee type. This automates patient creation in the portal with no need for manual data entry by clinic staff and eliminates the need to send a welcome email to each patient individually after creating their account.
At 5-10 minutes of staff time saved per patient account created, and 9,578 created since go-live, this capability has helped HBD save an estimated 95,780 minutes.
Next up is plans to add the Bridge Virtual Care, an all-in-one telehealth solution that will integrate with Health By Design’s EHR and follow the same patient check-in process as an in-person visit.
Through it all, Health By Design appreciates Bridge’s collaborative spirit and responsiveness as the two sides work through complex integrations and other challenges.
“They’ve been flexible, open to our feedback and very transparent about saying, this is something that’s going to take a lot of work, and this is the estimated time to deliver something like this,” according to Health By Design. “So definitely, the transparency of any requests that we’ve been put in has been helpful.”
In Summary
BridgeInteract not only saves time and improves operations, but it also alleviates friction by easing the administrative burden for patients and empowering them to play a more active role in their own healthcare.
- By consolidating disparate point solutions into a unified portal, Health By Design is streamlining operations and achieving a measurable return on experience.
- By transitioning from a disparate technology stack, BridgeInteract eliminated thousands of hours of busywork annually, freeing up time and resources to focus on patient care.
- By automating workflows and removing the administrative burdens of patient engagement, Health By Design is simultaneously addressing staff burnout and ensuring patients feel seen and respected.
With other IT vendors, Health By Design experienced frequent turnover with account representatives, forcing them to start fresh with new hires who were unfamiliar with their needs. By contrast, Bridge provides dedicated, consistent support with a team that understands their unique employer-health workflows deeply and hosts a regular cadence of touch-base meetings.
“Bridge understands our needs because they’ve been with us through the trenches of implementation,” according to Health By Design. “They aren’t just a vendor; they are transparent partners who tell us exactly what is possible and when it can be delivered.”
