As digital transformation initiatives sweep across the healthcare landscape, it is no surprise that CRM implementation is on the rise within the industry. As a matter of fact, the global healthcare CRM market is expected to reach $17.4 Billion by 2023, up from $8.8 Billion in 2018.
The reason for this upward trend in CRM adoption is that a growing number of healthcare organizations are focusing on improving patient health by optimizing their internal processes. This includes updating legacy systems that hindered innovation with newer technologies. Legacy systems built specifically for healthcare are extremely inefficient, and play a significant role in why the gap between healthcare delivery and patient expectations continues to widen. Today’s patients are looking for both easy access to healthcare and personalized treatment, something most legacy systems were not built to accommodate.
Because of this, more and more healthcare CIOs are turning to CRM systems that can be tailored for specific business needs, while keeping the needs of patients front and center. Using CRM in this way increases patient outreach and improves efficiencies, because workflows can be automated across multiple channels. This omnichannel approach improves patient care in a cost-effective manner, without compromising the quality of healthcare delivery.
Which CRM is Best for Healthcare?
When it comes to the types of CRM systems being used in healthcare, one of the biggest players in the market is Salesforce. As of 2017, Salesforce had already claimed 22% of the healthcare CRM market. Those numbers have only increased over time, as Salesforce continues to claim more of the overall CRM market each year.
Salesforce even has two very distinct offerings, Salesforce for Healthcare and Salesforce for Life Sciences. One product is focused on hospitals, health systems, clinics and other healthcare delivery organizations, while the other helps medical device and pharmaceutical companies.
Other CRM systems tailored for healthcare include Microsoft Dynamics CRM (with tools from P360), Veeva (which is built on the Salesforce platform) and SAP CRM.
Given its significant market share, it is safe to assume that most enterprise scale healthcare organizations with a CRM system in place are utilizing Salesforce. Even small to medium sized organizations are turning to Salesforce, despite the fact that it can become extremely complex. Which is why the role of Salesforce Administrator is one of the higher demand positions for healthcare recruiters to fill right now.
How to get the most out of Salesforce
But what do healthcare professionals need to know in order to get the most out of their Salesforce? The answer is simple; they need to know about Salesforce optimization.
Salesforce is an exceptionally robust software platform. Some in the industry even feel that it is more than just a CRM, because more and more companies are using it to run their entire enterprise. This includes equipping it with ERP, HR management, supply chain management, billing capabilities and much more - via ecosystem add-ons and custom development.
This is important to keep in mind, because the starting point for Salesforce optimization is making sure you set the system up for your intended use from the beginning. The more you customize the solution with Frankenstein-like modifications, the more clunky it becomes. Fortunately, there are org management tools available on Salesforce AppExchange that include templates that are pre-built for healthcare organizations. Metazoa Snapshot is one such product.
Beware of Technical Debt
As noted earlier, CRM systems like Salesforce can become extremely complex over time, especially in organizations with multiple locations, divisions, business units, products, etc. Salesforce can also become inefficient because of things like corporate mergers and acquisitions, poor system management practices, failed development projects, or disruptive administrative turnover. Experience has proven that this problem tends to be the most severe in the oldest and largest Salesforce orgs, and can result in slow performance, reduced agility, sluggish adoption and IT/business operations misalignment.
These problems are the result of bad metadata, or what is often referred to as technical debt. While a small amount of technical debt is normal, a Salesforce org that contains too much technical debt can not only have the performance issues discussed above, but can become increasingly more expensive to maintain over time. The end result, costly problems that could have been nipped in the bud with proper Salesforce org management tools.
Dealing with Technical Debt
Dealing with technical debt in an efficient and effective manner is key to Salesforce optimization, and is one of the areas where professionals that work as Salesforce administrators can really shine. And they don’t have to be developers in order to complete the task, because there are tools org management tools on the AppExchange that provide detailed analysis of technical debt.
When choosing a tool, Salesforce administrators should look for one that covers all metadata types, including fields, picklists, email templates, groups, queues, roles, reports, etc. Once unwanted debt is removed, Salesforce will run much more efficiently, which leads to lower costs, better user adoption and faster delivery of mission critical applications.
A simple sidebar to this; metadata should always be backed up before removal, just in case rollback or recovery is required.
Other Ways to Optimize
User connection cleanup is another way to optimize Salesforce. Keeping old, inactive user profiles within the system not only impacts optimization, it can lead to other complex problems like security issues down the road. In complex environments like healthcare, where HIPAA compliance is key, improper security measures and easy outside access to patient data can be a major problem.
Another, easier way to optimize your CRM is to remove custom fields. For example, some of the custom fields in a Salesforce account might be more useful than others. Some are rarely used, others not at all. One way to measure usefulness is to look at fields that are empty, or contain default values. The more distinct the field values, the more the field is being used - versus fields with more uniform values, which contain lots of duplicate information.
By eliminating unnecessary, unused fields, the CRM will run much more effectively. In addition, the chances of human error are greatly diminished when there are less fields to choose from.
The Salesforce Administrator is the Key to Optimization
As Salesforce orgs become more complex, the role of administrator becomes all the more important. As a matter of fact, if your organization is using, or looking to use Salesforce, then you need an administrator. They are the critical piece in translating business objectives into IT processes, and are the go to for streamlining those processes for efficiency and ease of use. This includes Salesforce org management, optimization, and maintenance.
