How Hospitals are Simplifying SOGI, RELD & SDOH Data Capture

By Blakely Roth | March 25, 2026

From critical requirements for patient data capture to lean staffing numbers, the pressure is on for busy health systems to accomplish more with less support. See what independent hospitals and health systems can learn from Holyoke Medical Center’s digital front door transformation. 

Digital Front Door Success for Hospitals:

94% Patient Adoption & Boosted Collections

As an independent community hospital, Holyoke Medical Center faced immense pressure to enhance data capture for critical state requirements. Prior to Holyoke’s digital front door transformation, Massachusetts introduced new requirements for collecting Race, Ethnicity, Language and Disability information (RELD); Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity information (SOGI); and Social Drivers of Health (SDOH) data. 

Chris Giroux, Director of IT Application Services at Holyoke Medical Center, explains, “There was a big push to capture key data elements, and with our staffing challenges, the organization knew accomplishing those state requirements was going to be difficult.” She says, “This information is sensitive, and patients may not feel comfortable answering questions verbally. It was important for us to find technology that could quickly capture this information, securely and with a patient-first approach.” 

With 17k visits per month and over 300 providers, Holyoke Medical Center was looking to do more than just meet those state requirements. The hospital was also hoping to modernize registration and reduce staff involvement. The health system accomplished this multi-faceted operational goal by partnering with Clearwave. 

Scaling Data Capture Consistency Across 17k Hospital Visits

Holyoke Medical Center aimed to provide a self-service experience that gives patients ownership and security over their data while optimizing workloads across the hospital. Senior Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Carl Cameron recently shared, “[Holyoke] aimed to reduce administrative burdens and significantly improve the patient experience by enhancing access and providing streamlined, self-service options.” 

Today, Holyoke has set the standard for large hospitals and health systems looking to meet modern patient and state requirements while accounting for staffing complexities along the way. In doing so, the healthcare organization met multiple goals:

• Improve data capture and reporting of critical criteria, including; Race, Ethnicity, Language, and Disability information (RELD); Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity information (SOGI); and Social Drivers of Health (SDOH) data 

• Ensure Seamless integration with MEDITECH Expanse  

• Offer Self-service registration to reduce wait times and boost collections

• Optimize clinical and administrative workloads, saving time to focus on manual tasks and patient care 

How was Holyoke was successful? 

Patient-Led Engagement: A Game-Changer for Hospitals & Health Systems

Holyoke Medical Center digitized and standardized patient intake with Clearwave by combining self-registration, real-time eligibility and point-of-service payments into a single patient-led workflow. Giroux shares, “Clearwave addresses a lot of different pain points and patient friction points for us. It’s helped us streamline not only registration, but also clinical workflows while meeting critical state requirements for patient data capture.” 

As a result, the hospital continues to see measurable improvements to staff efficiency, patient experience and financial performance. Holyoke Medical Center has accomplished it’s combined goals with one solution to expedite patient intake prior to care and ensure seamless data capture into MEDITECH Expanse. 

Holyoke Medical Center’s Success in Action

Registration: Despite an average patient age of 57, Holyoke exceeded adoption targets by driving 94% patient usage of self-registration. Giroux shares, “Clearwave has allowed us to meet our patients where they are. They can check in using their preferred method, whether it’s through their own device, an iPad they can take back to their seat or by going to the kiosk.” 

Holyoke sees 66% appointment confirmation rates via reminders — with many patients opting to pre-register for their appointments, leading to under 90-second check-in times for those patients.  

Payments: Holyoke has also increased patient awareness of financial responsibility, with 56% of patients paying before they complete check-in. Allison Rheault, EMR Application Analyst at Holyoke, adds, “Very little co-pays were collected originally, and it was often difficult to make sure what was collected was accurate. Now, we have specific rules in place to make sure we’re capturing those payments at check-in and that they’re correct based on a primary or specialty visit-type.”  

Giroux touches on the financial impacts, “We’ve built a process for patients to pay on-the-spot, and we’ve gone from collecting very little to collecting over half of patient co-pays at check-in, which has been impactful. By monitoring collection rates monthly, and by location, we’re able to track success and make changes to consistently keep that number trending up.” 

Data Capture & Compliance: Ultimately, for Holyoke Medical Center, the greatest value lies in accurate, patient-driven data capture that seamlessly flows into their electronic medical record, MEDITECH Expanse. Giroux confirms, “To me, a big value-driver is the data collection. It’s a strength Clearwave has that’s different than what other vendors can do with MEDITECH.”  

She highlights, “The state is very pleased with what we’re able to produce, it’s better, more accurate data, flowing where we need it, automatically, and it’s helped us get that much closer to being paperless.” 

Rheault adds, “Our registration and billing staff can get a lot more of their work completed. We even have less voicemails at the end of the day. Our teams are not scrambling to finish insurance verifications or make additional phone calls. Even just those couple extra minutes we’re saving per insurance check is big.” 

Proven Patient Engagement Results for Large Health Systems

With a proven Digital Front Door strategy, Holyoke Medical Center has accomplished its multi-faceted operational goals of strengthening data capture and security—while keeping patient and staff experience top-of-mind. Holyoke has set the standard for large hospitals and health systems looking to do it all while maintaining operational scalability in an ever-changing healthcare environment. 

• 94% Patient adoption of self-check-in with no front desk intervention  
• 56% Co-pay collection rate at check-in (Up From 0%) 
• 66% Appointment confirmation rate 
• 2m 11s Average check-in time 
• 1m 21s Average check-in time for pre-registered patients 

Read Holyoke’s full story here to see how other large multi-specialty groups and health systems can achieve similar results.