7 Benefits of CRM in Healthcare
CRM stands for customer relationship management. It encompasses tools and strategies designed to organize and manage customer data. This information used to be manual: kept in notebook and post-it notes. Today, with the digital revolution, all this information is stored in multiple, often disconnected, databases. The necessity arose to manage this data better in all industries, and healthcare is no exception. We will take a closer look at what CRM for healthcare is and what are the benefits of implementing this solution in your medical organization.
What Is CRM in Healthcare
The amount of data in healthcare is becoming too big to manage. From electronic health records to patient portals, many systems store, manage, and keep track of medical data. Additionally, keeping track of data in these disparate systems can be challenging in an industry like healthcare, where one patient deals with not only the medical provider but also banks, insurance companies, or government agencies. That is where healthcare CRM comes in.
We define this technology as any system designed to be used by a medical institution, such as a hospital, laboratory, or any entity dealing with the medical information of customers/patients. The main goal of this system is to engage patients and offer a holistic view of their health, giving medical practitioners an insight into the patient history, appointments past and future, balances, etc.
Benefits of CRM in Healthcare
Customer relationship management has many uses in many industries. In healthcare, however, it can speed up administrative processes and offer a comprehensive view of patient history, resulting in improved care delivery. There are several benefits this technology brings to a medical institution. Below is a non-exhaustive list of benefits you get by incorporating a medical CRM in your organization.
Comprehensive Patient Overview
Incorporating this technology means having a database system where you store all the information related to a particular patient. It means knowing their medical history, past appointments, schedules, balances, and all the other information related to the individual.
Patient Satisfaction
Having all the above data at your fingertips can help you make data-driven patient decisions. By understanding who your patients are and what they need, you can improve the quality of your services, giving the people exactly what they need.
Marketing Campaigns
You can utilize healthcare CRM software for targeted marketing. Knowing exactly who your customers are and what they need, you can make educated decisions about which patients might be interested in prospective offers or new services/products you are adding to your portfolio.
Optimization of Business Processes
Having all this data means understanding your patients and their needs. An exhaustive list of your patients, their conditions, and necessary medical supplies give you insight into how much of a specific medical supply you need. In this way, CRM software for healthcare can protect you from deficiencies or oversupply of any particular product in your inventory.
Improvement of Treatment
This technology gives you a complete insight into patients, their conditions, and treatment options. You can review the most successful practices and treatments and emphasize the most effective ones. However, healthcare is not a one-size-fits-all. All the data you have means knowing what a particular individual will best respond to. With healthcare CRM, you will know what a specific patient reacts to and adjust the already successful therapy accordingly.
Reduction of Medical Errors
Medical errors still plague the industry. Although pen and paper and manual data entry have almost been eliminated, the number of medical errors is still a problem in healthcare. In 2016, it was discovered that, based on 35 416 020 hospitalizations, 251, 454 people die yearly due to a medical error.
A good CRM healthcare software also highlights previous medical errors, pointing the care providers in the right direction regarding future treatment. Most errors arise from incomplete data, so this technology takes care of that problem.
Data Security
Cybersecurity in healthcare is one of the industry’s primary concerns. For twelve consecutive years, healthcare has been the number one target of cybercriminals. Developers must take extra steps to ensure the safety of protected health information.
CRM software for healthcare usually has strict configurations to protect the privacy and data of patients. Accessing and modifying information without proper authentication is a challenging endeavor.
Additionally, much like most software in healthcare, organizations handling patient data are held to a higher standard and must adhere to various regulations. In other words, incorporating this technology in your medical institution means incorporating the security that goes with it.
Challenges of CRM Implementation in Healthcare
Much like any industry that handles sensitive information, it is necessary to develop the software according to regulatory requirements. With healthcare, this step is emphasized: an inadequate system without proper security can lead to dramatic financial losses for the organization, ransomware, or loss of life. When trying to implement this technology, hiring a vendor like Vicert with years of experience in the healthcare sector is crucial. In doing so, you can bypass some of the pressing challenges of the healthcare sector, such as privacy and integration with the existing system.
Patient Privacy
A proper CRM for hospitals is HIPAA-compliant, following highlighted requirements such as the Privacy Rule. This rule refers to how the information is stored and shared. Following the HITECH Act, there is an increased number of entities to which this rule applies, such as healthcare providers, insurers, or even business associates.
To overcome this challenge and install proper software, healthcare providers must hire developers who are familiar with healthcare standards and aware of the constantly changing healthcare legislation.
Integration With Existing Systems
Hospital CRM tools can be hard to integrate. Medical organizations usually have different departments that do things in different ways. Creating a system that pools all this data from various sources and getting everyone on board with using this technology can be a challenge in its own right.
Care providers should partner up with vendors who are familiar with hospital integration. They should also include staff education and training on utilizing this technology best and reaping all its benefits.
Our Expertise
If you are looking for software such as CRM in healthcare - you have come to the right place. Vicert has decades of experience in the healthcare environment, developing digital healthcare solutions to fit your exact needs. Book a call with us to find out more!
