NEW YORK – As if hospitals and integrated delivery networks don’t have enough on their plates, effectively managing the entire patient relationship or customer experience has become a business requirement.
According to a 2006 Datamonitor survey, 40 percent of hospitals admitted that marketing to consumers will be one of their main challenges in going forward.
Customer relationship management, or CRM, is an emerging market in healthcare. For hospitals, the terms “patient relationship management” and “customer experience management” are more appropriate.
Regardless of terminology, CRM within healthcare tends to be fragmented because patient touchpoints exist before, during and after the episode of care.
Customer experience management, or CEM, involves letting processes direct how hospitals and integrated delivery networks think about the patients and understand where they touch the patient, according to Vi Shaffer, a research director for Gartner.
“Hospitals should focus on the patient experience, and IT organizations and healthcare businesses need to learn how to think of the total experience,” she said. That includes getting the attention of the potential patient, scheduling, coordination and delivery of care, physical and emotional care of the patient, billing and follow-up.
“Healthcare has made a radical shift from the notion of the private physician to the chronic disease management model,” Shaffer said. “This new model is a much more complex customer journey. It’s more proactive and requires more coordination.”
As a result, hospitals need to operate like an integrated delivery network because the new model changes what hospitals need to know about their patients and how to manage the patient journey.
Vendors that provide market forecasting across geographies can help hospitals understand customer demand and tell them what services are being used. Claims data can show hospitals what diagnoses were made, what procedures were done – even what medical innovations were performed in urgent care centers and ambulatory surgery centers.
Using that data, hospitals then can implement targeted mailings and focus outreach initiatives.
Data is at the heart of CRM, according to Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of Nucleus Research, an analysis firm that covers, among other things, the return on investment for CRM. Hospitals are looking at how they can use all the data gleaned from business intelligence and document and content management systems to improve case management. CRM for hospitals is essentially case management, involving access to patient records and the pooling and reporting of data from all sources to provide patients with value.
Wetteman noted that key areas of CRM are the management of data and content and the capability of keeping all patient records in one place and accessing those records when needed. Vendors in the business intelligence space include Cognos, Business Objects, Vignette and Digitech Systems.
“CRM is really understanding the need to look at the bottom line and find cost-effective solutions,” she said.
Additionally, Wettemann stressed that while IT solutions exist, staff dynamics is also critical to implementing effective CRM.
Markella Kordoyanni, an analyst for Datamonitor, agreed with Shaffer that patient relationship management is a fragmented market. The first step hospitals should take to see results in patient relationship management is to address operational issues. “Operational CRM looks at customer data to optimize and automate patient services,” she said. Automating simple tasks such as appointment scheduling is an easy way to show return on investment.
Kordoyanni expects hospitals to look to their practice management systems to automate these kinds of services and expects increased investment in call centers to provide specialized information requested by patients.
Enterprise-wide solutions, often called enterprise resource planning systems, will provide more value to hospitals than point solutions, she said, because the systems are more robust and reliable and they’re secure enough to follow patients throughout the continuum of care.
ERP clinical systems, along with clinical automation, revenue cycle management, patient scheduling and registration, are all processes that can be coordinated and contribute to customer experience management, said Gartner’s Shaffer.
“We’re seeing an evolution that will take five to seven years,” she said. “Ten to 20 institutions are going to become differentiated based on customer experience management and clinical management.”
Shaffer pointed to IDNs and centers of excellence such as the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System as being well positioned to excel in CEM.
“We’re not there yet with CRM. It’s an immature market,” Kordoyanni said. “We still haven’t defined it.”
Within five to 10 years, however, CEM or CRM should be mature markets, with centers of excellence leading the way and the fragmented management of the entire patient experience becoming much more seamless, she said.
Companies offering CRM solutions
Microsoft Corporation
Company contact: Worldwide 701-281-6500, U.S./Canada 888-477-7989
E-mail address: http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/request_more_info.mspx
Key attributes or differentiators: “The Power of Choice” as defined by four key categories: Familiar and flexible user interface – Native Outlook, Web browser, online and offline synchronization; Powerful business fit – fully customizable, application integration, vertical solutions; Flexible deployment – hosted, on-premise, hybrid; Multiple licensing options – subscription, perpetual, financed.
Reviews: Long-term care manager grows its business with millions in operational savings (http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=49778); Talbert Medical Group deploys new accounting solution, streamlines business processes (http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=48714); Insuring success: Microsoft CRM solution helps increase sales in AFLAC’s Salem office (http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=48321)
SAP
Company contact: SAP America, 610-661-1000, www.sap.com./usa/contactsap
Product requirements: Customers should contact SAP to discuss their specific requirements.
Key attributes or differentiators: The SAP CRM application helps healthcare organizations build lasting relationships with patients, referrers and other business partners; implement patient-focused strategies through better insights into single patients, patient groups and referrers; and improve customer services and increase staff productivity through informed customer interaction via different channels such as call centers and the Internet.
Reviews: http://www.sap.com/company/press/press.epx?pressid=7282
SAS
Company contact: Larry Mosiman, 919-531-9142, Larry.Mosiman@sas.com
Product requirements: SAS Customer Intelligence is a comprehensive software suite of marketing solutions to address the many marketing challenges faced by healthcare providers. Clients deploy different components of the suite depending on their current marketing needs, and then deploy others as their needs continue to grow. The technical requirements and recommendations to support the deployment of those software components varies. As a general product requirement, it will be important for the healthcare provider to have access to their member information to support the value proposition that SAS Customer Intelligence provides for deepening customer/member insights, choreographing customer/member interactions and continuously improving marketing performance.
Key attributes or differentiators: SAS’ customer intelligence suite includes campaign management; cross-sell/up-sell; customer retention; customer segmentation; e-mail marketing; event-driven marketing; campaign optimization; marketing mix analysis; marketing performance management and Web analytics. SAS CI is built on a unified marketing platform that takes advantage of existing technology investments and decreases total cost of ownership.
Reviews: For the fourth year in a row, CRM magazine recognizes SAS as leader in customer intelligence, October 9, 2006; Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine’s “CRM Excellence” Award for 2005 (July 5, 2005); Gartner positions SAS in the Leaders’ Quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Campaign Management, 1Q07;Gartner positions SAS in the Visionary Quadrant of the Magic Quadrant for Marketing Resource Management, 1Q07.
CPM Marketing Group
CRM solutions for hospitals
Oracle
Oracle CRM
Thomson Healthcare
CRMview