How Essentia Health Increased Patient Trust by 66% with Findhelp
Essentia Health, a large integrated health system in the upper Midwest, partnered with Findhelp to launch Resourceful, an integrated community resource referral system that delivers “helpful help”. In just a few years, the platform has connected more than 25,000 patients to essential services such as housing, food, and transportation, improving trust and communication between patients, providers, and community organizations.
“It [Resourceful, powered by Findhelp] makes us more efficient, plus we’re able to track and follow up with patients, which gives them a much more improved level. At least these are the responses that I’m hearing from the patients. They feel much more cared for, and they feel supported, and they’re getting connected to things that make their stress levels go down.”
Healthcare Worker at Essentia Health
(Olson, AW et al., 2025)
Findhelp’s partnership with Essentia began in 2021, leading to the creation of Resourceful—Essentia’s branded version of Findhelp’s platform. Providers can make electronic, closed-loop referrals via Findhelp directly within Epic, Essentia’s electronic health record (EHR), bridging healthcare and community-based services.
Our latest case study highlights how Essentia Health’s partnership with Findhelp delivered measurable improvements in trust, efficiency, and care coordination.
In this post, you’ll learn how:
Essentia replaced manual referrals with a closed-loop system integrated with Epic, turning “homework” into real support.
Findhelp usage increased patient trust by 66% and helped patients feel like people, not numbers.
93% of surveyed healthcare workers used Findhelp’s referral technology to reduce the time spent connecting patients to services
Essentia’s challenge: A broken system for finding social care
Before implementing Resourceful, Essentia Health’s process for addressing social needs was manual and fragmented. For patients, navigating this system was like trying to solve a “complicated maze of organizations, information, processes, and administrative burdens,” which often led to a deep sense of mistrust and skepticism (Olson, AW et al., 2025).
For staff, the process was inefficient and unsatisfying.
The traditional workflow involved giving patients brochures or resource lists–a practice Jill Doberstein, Essentia Health’s Community Outreach Program Manager, calls “giving patients homework.”
This homework approach led to patient frustration, missed opportunities, incomplete follow-ups, and inequitable outcomes, particularly those with housing or transportation barriers.
Essentia Health is an integrated health system serving Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. With a focus on advancing rural health equity, Essentia Health operates over 70 clinics and hospitals and employs more than 14,000 staff.
As Essentia expanded its health-related social needs (HRSN) screening, staff were identifying more problems without clear next steps to address them. Relying solely on social workers or community health workers for every identified need was unsustainable given the volume. The community recognized the need for a modern, shared infrastructure, and came together, with support from the City and County, to better connect the entire network of care.
“We’re so used to handing patients a brochure or a list of resources… But then we’re basically just giving our patients homework to do and saying good luck. And we don’t know what happened. Did they get help? Did they reach out?”
Jill Doberstein
Community Outreach Program Manager at Essentia Health (Nelson et al., 2025)
To solve the challenge, Essentia needed to fill two critical gaps:
- The entire care team needed a tool to make immediate, accurate referrals
- The health system needed a closed-loop system to know what happened after the referral–tracking not only if help was offered, but whether the patient received it.
From “homework” to “helpful help”: How Findhelp shifted the burden from patients
Essentia Health implemented Findhelp’s platform, branding it “Resourceful,” and integrated it directly into their Epic electronic health record (EHR). This integration solves the “homework” problem by shifting the burden away from patients and into the hands of empowered care team members who can identify needs and initiate electronic referrals to CBOs directly within their existing workflow.
“Now, with this platform, I can see who’s eligible. Is the program available? Are they on a waitlist? And then I can place that electronic referral with [the patient’s] consent” Doberstein explains (Nelson & Doberstein, 2025).
This system enables both provider-driven and self-directed access to community services, and care teams can issue referrals and receive status updates, closing the loop on care coordination. Doberstein refers to this feedback mechanism as the platform’s most valuable feature: “Not only can we send that electronic referral on our patients’ behalf, but we also want it to know what happens. That full-circle opportunity was huge.” (Nelson & Doberstein, 2025).
Through Findhelp, Essentia trained hundreds of staff and community partners—including public health agencies and local nonprofits—on how to navigate and promote the tool. The platform is free for patients, and lists only free or low-cost services, ensuring equitable access. Resourceful is promoted through patient materials, such as After Visit Summaries in Epic.
The implementation involved extensive community engagement, ensuring the platform and workflows were designed with input from people with lived experience.
Resourceful differentiated itself from past methods by offering a centralized, vetted database, streamlining the referral process, reducing patient burden, and providing crucial outcome data.
The results: Proving the value of “helpful help”
To measure the patient experience, Essentia Health collaborated with UCARE, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, and others on a Community-Based Participatory Evaluation (CBPE) study. Results emphasized the value of “helpful help”—actively connecting patients to services versus simply providing information. Essentia acted on this feedback by refining workflows and training staff.
“A website directory isn’t helpful help. It’s still giving people homework to do. So really, that helpful help of, I’m gonna place the referral for you… and then I’m gonna show you how to do it and navigate the platform on your own… has been really beneficial.”
Jill Doberstein
Community Outreach Program Manager at Essentia Health (Nelson et al., 2025)
Quantitative results: Improved experiences
Higher Trust Levels
86% of healthcare workers (HCWs) and 66% of patients agreed that using Resourceful strengthened trust.
Person-Centered Care
79% of HCWs and 60% of patients agreed the system made patients feel like a person, not just a number.
Effective Assistance
93% of HCWs agreed that the platform assisted them in reducing the time and energy patients would have otherwise spent finding services, while 56% of patients agreed.
Improved Communication
86% of HCWs and 68% of patients said using Resourceful made it easy for them to talk about finding and/or getting connected to help.
Increased Understanding
86% of HCWs and 59% of patients agreed that Resourceful made it easy for them to understand how to find and/or connect to help.
Qualitative results: Feeling heard
The qualitative analysis also highlighted how the new process helped patients feel heard and valued. One patient described a transformative experience: “Well, [the HCW who used Resourceful] told me somebody would contact me, but in my experience, I never had anybody tell me, ‘Somebody will contact you,’ and that afternoon, somebody had already contacted me. I almost fell over. I mean, this was taken care of right away. It was not put in my file never to be looked at again” (Olson, AW et al., 2025).
For HCWs, the ability to close the loop on referrals was a game-changer. It not only improved efficiency but enabled higher quality of care focused on the patient’s well-being. Testimonials from the CBPE study highlight the platform’s real-world impact:
“Now that I know how to find and connect to help from a community-based organization [with Resourceful], I know what my options are, and I got the help from the Resourceful people… It was a good experience. I’m glad I did it.”
Essentia Patient Interviewee
“It puts the ball in their court and gives them the power… they feel like part of the process rather than being told what to do.”
Essentia Healthcare Worker Interviewee
“Because at first I was kind of like, ‘I don’t know if this is even—what is the point of answering these questions?’ And then when it did help me, I was like, ‘Oh, wow. I’m so grateful’… And it was a really helpful experience. So I definitely have a level of trust now.”
Essentia Patient Interviewee
Looking ahead
The study results were used to enhance training and communication for Essentia staff. Future plans include expanding their Trusted Networks and continuing to use data and feedback to optimize the platform and processes. Furthermore, the study recommends that future work focus on exploring these findings in different communities to understand how factors such as demographics and geography influence the patient experience.
Ready to deliver “helpful help” in your community?
Essentia Health’s experience shows what’s possible when health systems move beyond resource lists and build real, trackable connections to community care. By embedding closed-loop referrals into everyday workflows, they strengthened trust, improved efficiency, and made patients feel seen and supported.
If your organization is working to address health-related social needs, you don’t have to start from scratch. Findhelp partners with health systems across the country to design, implement, and scale referral networks that fit seamlessly into clinical workflows and connect patients to the right support at the right time.
Schedule a demo with Findhelp to see how you can replicate Essentia’s success and build a more connected, trusted network of care.
References:
Olson AW, Allen N, Elmayan A, Green K, Harry M, Kempfert J, Maki H, Nelson S, St. John R, Witherspoon S, Rapps M (2025 May). Getting Inside Closed‐Loop Referrals: Exploring the Patient Experience of Finding and Connecting to Social Care With a Community Resource Referral System Using a Community‐Based Participatory Approach. Health Services Research, 60(Suppl 3). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1475-6773.14451?af=R
Nelson, S., Doberstein, J., & Olson, AW. (2025, May 8). Getting inside closed-loop referrals: Exploring the patient experience using a community-based participatory evaluation approach [Conference webinar]. Findhelp’s 2025 Connect Summit; Essentia Health. https://auntbertha-2.wistia.com/medias/jf7tl38zts
Nelson, T., & Doberstein, J. (2025, September 8). How Essentia is bridging health care and community support [Podcast episode]. In Hospital Matters. Minnesota Hospital Association. https://www.mnhospitals.org/2025/09/08/how-essentia-is-bridging-health-care-and-community-support/
