While the CRM (customer relationship management) needs of hospitals are very different from those of commercial enterprises and other types of nonprofit organizations, Healthcare CRM systems are being adopted by hospitals to address a variety of business needs.
A proven benefit is greater prescription adherence, which leads to reduced readmission rates.
The Issues Facing Your Hospital
Consumers have more choices than ever as to which hospital to choose for specialty care and for treatment of serious illnesses.
With ever-shifting local populations, ongoing large-scale marketing efforts are required to create awareness within the communities served by various facilities. To support these marketing efforts, access to big data sources is becoming an increasingly important component of CRM in hospitals.
Not only do marketing campaigns need to be service-line specific, but systems need to have the ability to meld campaign data with downstream patient revenue figures to provide meaningful ROI figures.
Hospitals also need a way to market to physicians and maintain strong relationships with key physicians. These B2P (business to physician) relationships can be better supported with the use of contemporary CRM and marketing automation systems.
An area in which CRM technology is being implemented in a more traditional fashion is in the marketing and selling of specific programs such as joint replacement, smoking cessation, or weight loss. A combination of microsites, calls to action, and marketing automation landing pages are being used to attract potential patients. A call center is then set up so that representatives can field inquiries and qualify patients as to whether they are candidates for specific programs. A CRM system can be used to manage the entire end-to-end process from marketing to program attendance to ongoing patient relationships.
Selecting a Hospital CRM System
The choice in CRM systems comes down to an industry-specific CRM solution or a horizontal solution that’s tailored to hospital needs. Industry-specific solutions include Truven and Healthgrades. Horizontal solutions include Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365. There are pros and cons to each type of technological approach.
The available choices in marketing automation systems range from Pardot to HubSpot to Marketo. The best option depends on a number of factors.
Even if there is a heavy favorite, a proper planning and selection process will result in a higher success level of the ultimately chosen CRM system.
