CRM - July 2008 - (Page 18)

MARKET FOCUS: HEALTHCARE A Prescription for Satisfaction As healthcare becomes more technologically advanced, are patients better served? Y ou’ve heard of smart bombs ter how competent someone feels in the and smartphones, but have rest of his life, he can go into a doctor’s you heard of a smart hospital office and feel incompetent.” Hollenbeck room? As all industries em- attributes part of the unease to the brace technology to further enhance healthcare provider’s lack of intrapercustomer service and satisfaction, it’s sonal skills and increased attention to no wonder the healthcare industry has the technological aspects of treatment. Vi Shaffer, leading healthcare analyst followed suit, not just with machinery and electronic medical records, but with industry-research firm Gartner, with telehealth as well—the term of art writes in a 2008 report that innovation to for remote treatment. Some say that increase patient satisfaction is now a highly regarded trend, with advancements in medical ‘telehealth’ aptechnology, although in Innovations can increase “emerging and increasing plications many ways adding sophisrequirements for direct [intication to the field, ulti- patient satisfaction. formation systems] support mately cause a further disconnect in the relationship between for patients and consumers.”She adds that the patient and the healthcare provider. buzz around “personal online health”— Others, however—such as healthcare- electronic visits and medical records—is technology developer Cerner Corpora- underpinning a movement toward action—say that technological innovations commodating complexities while finding are a definite way to bridge the gap and new ways to understand the customer. increase patient satisfaction. In 2007, Medicare created a survey— THE HOSPITAL ROOM OF THE FUTURE the first of its kind—asking participants Alan Latham, national sales director at to rank their satisfaction based on a Cerner, a supplier of information technumber of questions regarding health- nology solutions for healthcare, says that care facilities and services. The results providers have already grasped the need show that patients rated overall care at to digitize and integrate patient data, and about a four on a zero-to-six scale. So are they’re moving on to the next step: leverpeople only slightly satisfied when re- aging the electronic information and ceiving medical care? involving the patient. Cerner has created In other industries, consumers can and is continuing to develop a “Smarteasily shop around or make demands Room”—essentially a futuristic hospital when it comes to goods and services suite embedded with technologies to betthey pay for. Dr. Phyllis Hollenbeck, a ter serve, educate, and even entertain the family physician and author of Sacred patient. Latham says efforts with SmartTrust, a book analyzing the human char- Room are furthering patient knowledge acteristics of modern-day doctors, de- and bringing the conversation of wellness scribes the situation in medical care as “a into the actual hospital room. “Today, as very different thing than asking for help we start to digitize more and more in any different profession.” She contin- information, it exists in the hallway on a ues, “In a department store, people are PC,” Latham says. “We want to pull more more comfortable asking for help than of the data into the patient room and to [they are] in the doctor’s office. No mat- pull the patient into the conversation.” 18 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JULY 2008 Among the innovations provided by SmartRoom is the myStation Dashboard—a complicated, TV-looking console that provides a gamut of personalized information, similar to a homepage, to better inform patients. For example, the My Health Notes option allows patients to write electronic notes about their care to their physicians. My Education provides patients and family members with health information prescribed by the medical staff. My Care Team, which Latham says is perhaps the simplest but most-lauded feature, presents patients with a pictorial introduction to the individuals responsible for their care. In addition, all of the roomautomation aspects are controlled from one central dashboard. Latham admits that cost will be a factor in adapting these technologies, but he says that with the rapid pace of information innovation, consumers—especially in the healthcare industry—will begin demanding these advanced capabilities. Healthcare CRM simply won’t survive without them. THE SPECTRUM OF SATISFACTION Spectrum Healthcare, a nonprofit medical system in western Michigan, has eight hospital rooms using SmartRoom tools. Even in the pilot phase, says Kris White, Spectrum’s vice president of patient affairs, the response among patients has been tremendous. White says that although the TV-entertainment part of the myStation is important to normalize patient life, more critical is what the tool does over the long term to enhance satisfaction and connectedness with the patient and family. “Being a hospital, we haven’t done a great job of putting technology into the patient’s hands that is solely for their benefit,” she says. White and Latham hope that innovations such as those in SmartRoom will someday change that. —Lauren McKay Oracle’s Siebel Salesforce.com VENDORS Cegedim Dendrite Source: Hussain Mooraj, Healthcare & Life Sciences research director, AMR Research TOP IN LIFE SCIENCES SFA 3 www.destinationCRM.com http://Salesforce.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - July 2008

CRM - July 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point CRM’s a Social Animal SAP Looks to ‘Change the Game' CRM on Twitter CRM to the Max A Prescription for Satisfaction Required Reading Cover Story: Is Microsoft Winning the CRM Race? Jumping into the SaaS Pool Say What? Another Bright Idea Out of Edison A Small Biz Blossoms Biting Off the Right Amount Something for a Rainy Day Connect Re:Tooling Pint of View

CRM - July 2008

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