It might seem like there's not much overlap between Salesforce's business solutions and the challenges facing the healthcare industry today. Maybe that's because we aren't used to thinking of a visit to the doctor as a customer journey, or healthcare as a business pipeline.
Nevertheless, as Salesforce continues to expand its vertical-specific solutions, the company has a lot to offer patients, providers, payers, and other industry stakeholders, with patient management software that helps healthcare companies personalize and streamline operations while improving the patient experience and health outcomes.
How Salesforce fits into today's healthcare industry
"Healthcare" is really an umbrella term for a host of disparate industries and verticals, encompassing everything from medical care itself to insurance, biotech, and pharmaceuticals worth over $8.45 trillion globally.
As a whole, the healthcare industry faces a multitude of challenges: rising demand for care management caused in part by aging demographics, the interoperability of computer systems needed to link legacy platforms with a growing ecosystem of connected healthtech, and heightened competition for patients. If all of these sound right within Salesforce's wheelhouse, well, you probably suspect where we're going with this.
Clouds for every care practice
The centerpiece of Salesforce's CRM solutions has always been Sales Cloud, and businesses in the healthcare industry can certainly benefit from implementing Sales Cloud for customized customer relationships and powerful patient management and patient engagement.
But with Health Cloud, a purpose-built healthcare CRM for the industry, Salesforce delivers benefits to multiple businesses within the healthcare and life sciences sector, including providers and payers, pharma, healthtech, and public health.
No matter where in the healthcare sector a business operates, it can likely rely on Health Cloud for a 360-degree view of its patients and customers through solutions that help:
- Connect data silos
- Leverage data analytics
- Enhance care-team collaboration
- Personalize experiences
- Keep data secure
Health Cloud can be purchased at two price points: Salesforce Enterprise (scalable out-of-the-box CRM) and Salesforce Unlimited (the Bentley of CRMs, with 24/7 support and more robust options for customization).
If you're wondering where to start, here's our take: Unless you have a burning need for deep customization and support right out the gate, Enterprise is likely the best choice for your business. If customization is still in order, with either Enterprise or Unlimited, there's no shortage of ways Salesforce can be tailored to match your specific needs.
Connect data silos
Healthcare patients (the "customers" at the heart of Health Cloud) produce reams of data across many disparate systems. Between Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, lab reports, and insurance claims, crucial data is often scattered and difficult for providers to access.
Salesforce's healthcare CRM eliminates these silos and unifies systems with an interoperable approach to patient engagement. Health Cloud can be customized to integrate data with EHR systems, Apple HealthKit, and other repositories of health data. And through a Mulesoft Accelerator for Healthcare, you can further unify assets. By connecting data across systems, healthcare providers can provide collaborative, personalized care.
Leverage data analytics
After centralizing data through a Salesforce customization, you can leverage the platform's business intelligence — plus Salesforce tools like Tableau — for actionable insights and faster decision-making. For example, providers can identify patients with high-risk needs or guide patients towards the right care management, which, to use traditional nomenclature, is a form of business intelligence. In other words, providers can improve their bottom line by relying on analytics, rather than hunches and instinct.
Enhance care-team collaboration
Healthcare is a team sport: An array of providers and professionals collaborate to support patient wellness. Salesforce Health Cloud allows providers to customize and assign Care Teams to patients, fueling collaboration and making it easy to both gain insights from colleagues and see how patients are interacting with multiple individuals from your organization — all while boosting productivity.
Personalize experiences
There's a lot more to patient care than face-to-face visits these days. During the pandemic, many patients got a taste of just how easy virtual care and a personalized healthcare journey can be, and a lot of us got accustomed to that on-the-fly interaction with providers across devices. Salesforce has been expanding its offerings accordingly. Health Cloud's tools for patient relationship management can be customized to make it easy for patients to get in touch with providers and payers, from whatever device they're most comfortable using.
Keep data secure
Patient data is crucial and personal in equal measure. Breaches can compromise the healthcare data of millions — and millions of consumers are at risk. With a Salesforce customization that integrates Salesforce Shield into your platform, you can grant patients peace of mind with a solution that protects patient data through HIPAA-compliant encryption and authorization.
The interests of users in the healthcare industry might seem diverse, even disparate. On the one hand, consumers are after personalized, connected, and trustworthy care that delivers positive health outcomes, while on the other, providers want healthcare CRM that is scalable, HIPAA-compliant, and delivers ROI. But they all benefit from the same holistic view of healthcare: a 360-degree view of patients and customers, making a cloud-enabled Salesforce solution just what the doctor ordered for everyone.
