What is the Importance of CRM in the Healthcare Industry

The Healthcare industry is a fast-paced booming sector where new technologies and innovation work along for the betterment of humans. Also, governments across the globe make it a mandate to make sure that healthcare reaches the grassroots level. The changes in the environment, the evolution of different organisms, and climatic changes have brought a significant shift to the lifestyle of people. This in turn has altered the responsiveness of humans to several external factors and diseases. For instance, viruses have gone through multiple evolutions and this has altered their effects on humans leading to the identification of unknown pathogens and new diseases. In short, the healthcare industry has to face a number of challenges in its everyday operations. When there is so much to manage, it is a tedious task to complete them with manual effort.

So, how can you manage the operations of the healthcare industry? Here is where CRM tools come in.

Now, you might be wondering what are the benefits of CRM software in the healthcare industry. Let me tell you, CRM tools are popular for their versatility and are capable of being adapted effortlessly to serve any industrial purpose. Apptivo CRM Software has the best tools in the industry to tackle the different challenges you come across in healthcare. Apptivo is a secure and effective CRM for hospitals. It has distinct apps to focus on different departments and the work requirements of healthcare workers. In this blog, we have broken down how integrating a CRM in the healthcare industry can bring out a huge change to the healthcare industry operations.

Evolution Of Healthcare Industry – Overview

The current healthcare system and patient management software that are currently employed by hospitals across the globe were not present since the beginning of time? It is a result of civilization and continuous technological advancements.

Did you know there was a time when most of the illnesses were cured effortlessly through home remedies? Yes, humans’ affinity towards nature made them find cures for most of the diseases that prevailed during the ancient period. However, that was just the beginning.

As man brought about new evolutions and discovered noteworthy mysteries, we moved slowly towards civilization where experts in medicine were called upon to manage diseases that were not cured through home remedies. Even the concept of midwifery to attend women in childbirth evolved through the passage of time.

Depending on the geographical location, different types of medicine systems were followed by the people of a specific region. For instance, western medicine followed the ancient Greek principle of “Four Humors —blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile”. A balance among the four was considered as key to health. Even the term ‘Doctor’ was coined at a later period, where people relied on “bone-setters” and surgeons who often had no formal training.

However, medicine which was a family thing couldn’t withstand the challenges put forth by time. The evolving time period became a daunting task for these people with no formal training. This laid the foundation for medicine as a separate area of study and profession. The advancements in technology and discovery of new diseases laid the background for a strong healthcare industry that is readily available to adapt to changing situations.

What Is A Healthcare CRM?

A medical CRM is a system that helps healthcare managers to acquire, retain, and engage with patients and provide personalized services. This medical CRM is not limited only to hospitality but also to medical suppliers, financials, and pharmaceutical divisions of the healthcare industry. The best CRM for healthcare integrates customer’s clinical, financial, and social details in a single integrated system.

We at Apptivo offer dedicated applications like Contact Center, Contact, Customer, Supplier, Invoice, Events, and Call Logs to manage several divisions in the healthcare industry. Furthermore, we also have a dedicated customer portal that allows patients to interact directly with the required staff and communicate their queries and grievances. These features and applications are available in a secured cloud that cannot be accessed by third parties. Furthermore, it also allows quick migration of data from your legacy systems to Apptivo CRM.

Introduction To Medical CRM

The evolution of medicine also led to digital healthcare where the information pertaining to the patients is available for quick retrieval. However, while digital healthcare is a great advancement, it also brought about a number of challenges. This is related to the accessibility of customer information and privacy-related issues. It has become a huge debate across the world with governments coming forward with a number of laws and regulations to secure the health records of patients.

Furthermore, with more players coming in, hospitals are now competitive with one trying to surpass the other to offer personalized care. Hence, hospitals take all possible measures to ensure that more patients visit their hospitals. To achieve this, they must have reputed doctors, specialists, advanced equipment, and other resources. All these combined with a powerful CRM can make wonders.

Healthcare Customer Relationship Management can manage a complete database on patients that are stored securely and cannot be accessed by third parties. The CRM Medical software can easily provide the required information through the patients through text, phone calls, or email from anywhere at any time. Furthermore, this information can also be used by hospitals to keep them informed on personalized care as a type of marketing measure.

In short, the availability of medical CRM helps the healthcare industry to offer instant services, solutions, and improve the overall performance of the hospitals. By availing an all-in-one CRM like Apptivo, hospitals can monitor their complete workflow from a single system and reduce any type of errors that could cost a lot in this crucial industry.

Healthcare CRM Features

Now that we have walked through the evolution of healthcare and the foundation of medical CRM, you might wonder, “Why is CRM important to healthcare?”. In this section, we have listed the benefits of CRM in healthcare and how healthcare CRM features can make a huge difference in managing your hospitals.

Database Management

Patient management software has a pivotal role in the smooth functioning of business operations and customer management. When your customer record is managed efficiently with top-most security, then it is a given fact that you are halfway through to achieving the desired satisfaction rate. This is because health records are valuable documents and it is unacceptable if the security of the records is compromised.

With a robust healthcare CRM system, hospitals can worry less about security breaches and third-party access. Apptivo Medical CRM enables your healthcare teams to manage an all-in-one database that comprises even the smallest information related to a particular patient. These records are neatly arranged and can be easily located at any point in time without any manual effort.

One of the most common benefits of CRM is its ability to provide solutions to multiple problems from a single platform. Furthermore, the detailed access levels prevent access only by the authorized employees while preventing others from viewing specific information. For instance, you can set access only for a particular employee to edit customer records. This will enable others to only view the records but not edit them.

There are various laws across the world governing the security of patient’s information and hence, it is vital to choose the best CRM for healthcare to avert any legal issues.

Customer Service

Customer service is another important aspect of running a business. The quality of the customer service can be assessed through the interactions with support and sales teams. While the support team and sales team can make sure that they offer optimal service. One should remember that there are other factors running in the background which determine the quality of the service delivered.

Imagine, your customers have a simple query on how to schedule an appointment. In this case, they often expect to obtain an immediate solution rather than waiting in the queue. If your team provides an instant solution, then the service is considered exceptional. However, if your support team is busy with other customers, then it is a problem.

To overcome this hassle, medical teams can utilize a clinic management system that makes the complete process simplified. One of the finest CRM examples is the inception of SLAs. SLAs in the Ticketing System are a boon for support teams finding it difficult to juggle between multiple tasks and offer quick solutions.

With SLAs, the support teams can easily prioritize the incoming tickets based on the priority level, assign them to the right employee, and provide solutions creating an effective clinic management software.

Collaboration Tools

When you are managing a hospital, communication is a key department that you should pay attention to. Owing to the fact that, patients normally communicate to book an appointment, check the availability, or put forward some inquiry. In all these cases, communication channels act as a bridge.

Nowadays, the phone system is not the only source of communication in hospitals. There are live chats, text messaging services, emails, and other communication tools that can boost your healthcare industry. When your teams are empowered with the right tools, you can notice a tremendous improvement in the satisfaction rate.

Apptivo Medical CRM has several collaboration tools like Emails, Calendars, Notes, Call Logs, Documents, and many more that integrates your communication system. This is one of the prime benefits of CRM in the healthcare industry. Hospitals should also leverage this digital healthcare feature for better outreach and enhance the retention rate.

Customer Portal

According to a study, around 70% of people expect a company’s website to include a self-service application. This helps customers and visitors to find information on their own and save the time spent on waiting to reach out to the right support team. Customer service combined with self-service also assists support teams in getting their tasks done quicker.

The CRM medical system of Apptivo offers an exclusive customer service portal that allows customers to effortlessly interact directly with the right team. The customer portal also enables visitors to book appointments and keep track of the availability of the slots. The customers can easily track their tickets and find instant solutions.

In addition to this, hospitals should also ensure that the websites have the answers to the frequently asked questions that are most asked by the customers. By having answers readily available, the support teams will be able to focus on more pressing tasks.

Self-service portals also reduce the burden of support teams who have to handle interactions that are not meant to be communicated with them. The detailed service portal also offers a security access level that cannot be accessed by third-party applications.

Conclusion

While this blog covers the common healthcare CRM features, there are other characteristics of CRM software like team management, tasks management, project management, and suppliers’ data management. Apptivo is an integrated CRM solution of 65+ applications that has everything your business needs to manage your hospitals and clinics without any hassle.

Also, Read

• CRM 101
• Customers App