How to Make a Custom Healthcare CRM

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In the 21st century, healthcare is not only about disease curing but also about providing services to the patients. Hospitals, research institutes, pharmaceutical companies — all of them strive to have high revenues, invest in the company growth, and invent more effective treatment methods.

Along with the development of the IT market, healthcare companies are adopting technical innovations: EHR systems, telemedicine, AI-powered solutions for diagnosing, VR systems for surgery, etc. Another basic need is a CRM system tailored to the needs of the healthcare industry.

A CRM system helps healthcare companies communicate with patients via different channels and address their needs with customized health plan offerings. This article will analyze the possibilities of a healthcare CRM system and help you decide if your business really needs it.

healthcare CRM

Healthcare CRM Market Stats

The analysts expect the healthcare CRM market size to reach $17.8 billion by 2025, with a CAGR growth of 9.1%. The growth’s driving factor is the growing average aging of the population which is a growing trend in many countries due to increased lifetime.

healthcare CRM market size

The rise of chronic diseases amongst the population also requires constant health monitoring. In the US, 25% of the population younger than 45 reported having chronic conditions. In the age between 45 and 65, about 50% of people come up with chronic conditions, and after 65, this number increases to 81%. 

The growing number of patients requires the optimization of healthcare organization work and drives the demand of business healthcare systems, like EHR, CRM, telemedicine, etc. According to a Deloitte study, 62% of patients prefer online consultations with their doctors.

The consumers of healthcare CRM software are not only clinics and scientific research institutes. The target audience also includes insurance companies and specialized hospitals, like hospice care institutions. Pharmacy, biotech, Clinical Research Organizations are also adopting health CRM systems. 

Geographical Market Structure 

CRM Market share

North America is an undeniable market leader due to excellent healthcare and IT market development. The government actively supports both these industries and particularly encourages the growth of telemedicine and healthcare CRM companies

The Asian market is considered the fastest-growing due to the increasing investments and a growing number of private hospitals. All of them will require installing hospital CRM software, which will become the driver of the market growth.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

European countries also support healthcare sectors. There are plenty of developed economies, and during 2014-2020, the European Union invested 449.4 million EUR in support of the healthcare infrastructure. 

Healthcare CRM vs EHR 

hospital CRM

Both systems store the patient data and facilitate both internal cooperation and communication with the patients. The key difference between EHR and CRM is that EHR is focused on optimizing the treatment process. At the same time, hospital CRM helps increase patient satisfaction and convert it into returning customers, sending them personalized offers.

You needn’t choose between these systems since CRM can be integrated with the EHR, helping you gain the most profit from them. You can also add patient databases, billing, document management systems, insurance databases, etc. Remember that all medical software requires additional security measures according to HIPAA requirements. 

 EHR and CRM

Why Your Business Needs a Medical CRM System

The use of a CRM system helps the healthcare organization automate the communication with the patients and improve their satisfaction rate. Creating personalized offers helps retain the customers and increase their life-term value. But a CRM for the medical industry is more complex than it may seem at first glance. Here we will talk about its main benefits.

CRM for the medical centers

Improved Patient Support

Ideally, patients prefer to entrust a particular doctor with their health. They do treatment and check-ups with the same specialist for ages; the doctor has access to the entire patient’s health state. How is it all connected with a CRM?

To become a returning customer, the patient should get a pleasant experience not only with the doctor but with the clinic as well. The patient CRM system automates scheduling appointments, taking tests, and even helps to choose the doctor according to the patient’s request. 

After a consultation, the patient’s profile is created, and the patient can see the medical history, refresh the doctor’s recommendations in mind, check test results and prescriptions. The system will also remind about the next appointment and help the patient be more engaged in the treatment process. 

Personalization

A CRM system creates a profile for each patient and logs all the history of their relationship with the clinic. It helps analyze patients’ health state and create customized offerings, encouraging them to make an appointment with the doctor.

For example, suppose a patient receives dental care using the information from a CRM system. In that case the clinic can offer a personalized package that will include extraction of the late teeth, removing dental calculus, and installing the braces. 

With a CRM system, the clinic can also offer reasonable terms for partner companies’ services — drug stores, test labs, etc. It is also possible to greet the patients with holidays and offer discounts for preventive check-ups or other services.

Time & Cost Optimization

Time is money. In a modern competitive market, it is easy to lose a customer because of too slow service. It is impossible for human employees to answer all the requests 24\7, to manage the appointment schedule, to solve all the issues.

To provide immediate feedback, it is possible to integrate a chatbot into a dynamics CRM for healthcare. It can schedule an appointment, help to choose the specialist, or provide other information.

Breakdown of Features of a Healthcare CRM System

features of a healthcare CRM

We’ve already considered the benefits of using a CRM system in the work of a healthcare organization. Let’s talk about the functionality that helps manage different aspects of a medical business.

Business Management Functions

Actually, this functionality stands on the top of the hierarchy and helps control the work of different departments, including those not related directly to healthcare.

  • HR management

In combination with different outreach methods, the system facilitates the work with a pool of candidates. It also helps analyze the existing staff’s efficiency, onboard new team members, manage the holiday schedule, and so on.

  • Billing & finance management

This block of functions helps control the company’s financial matters, both the revenues and the expenses. Here you can raise the invoice to the customers and manage the company’s internal expenses. The correspondent function can successfully handle taxes, staff salaries, procurement — all money matters.

  • Administration management

Scheduling the appointments, surgeries, laboratory testings, and entire organization of the clinic internal matters — everything can be handled with a CRM healthcare system’s administrative functionality.

Sales & Marketing Functions

Sales and marketing management are the main features CRM systems are associated with. The use of a CRM system helps automate customer flow and provide them with the best possible service.

  • Referrals Management

Referrals are the second-highest quality source of leads in all industries, including the healthcare one. With a CRM, doctors often refer the patients to their colleagues of different specialties and test labs. 

The biggest challenge in referral marketing in the healthcare industry is the necessity of exchanging sensitive information between the different healthcare providers. A CRM system helps establish secure information exchange and streamline the cooperation of various healthcare providers regarding the patient’s health.

  • Direct mail campaigns

A CRM system’s primary feature is managing the newsletter campaigns — promotional ones, reminders, customized offers, etc. This helps to reach the customers via the different channels and to stay in touch with them. A CRM system helps to automate the processes of campaign management, lead generation, and sales process. 

Data Management Functions

To optimize the communication with patients and other healthcare providers, a CRM system can be integrated with patient databases, electronic health records, etc. Here you need to pay attention to protecting the patient data and securing exchange with other healthcare providers.

  • Centralized Patient Database

All the information is stored in one place, and only authorized people can view and update health records. With the centralized database, the doctors can diagnose the patients more precisely and choose the most appropriate treatment. For the clinic, the database is a means of maintaining contact with the patients: sending reminders, creating customized offers, etc. 

  • Security & compliance

Since the healthcare system is storing sensitive personal information, it must follow the latest industry security requirements, like HIPAA. Data security is the largest concern in the healthcare industry since an average data breach costs a healthcare company about $6.45 million. For other industries, the expenses are about $3.92 million. 

35% of the data breaches in the healthcare sector take place due to human errors. CRM software helps improve security by encoding confidential data and making it available only to authorized staff — doctors, nurses, and other medical employees. For the cloud-based HIPAA-compliant CRM systems, the providers give extended security support.

Analytic Functions

With CRM software, you can securely store patient data, manage the staff’s work, and monitor patient appointments. With the help of metrics and dashboards, the clinic can see the analytics of email campaigns, different departments’ statistics, etc. 

  • Doctors’ Performance Statistics

With this analytic tool, the clinic analyzes the work of each doctor. It helps analyze their performance and define which medical services bring the most profit and which need optimization. It also helps monitor and optimizes the schedule to avoid overload. 

  • Patient analytics

With a patient management system, you can segment patients according to demography and their requests. It will also help analyze different metrics, such as retention rate, duration of the appointment, and the most popular services. This will help you understand them better and to improve your service. 

  • Feedback

Integrating a CRM system into your clinic’s website, you will be able to receive feedback regarding the doctor’s work and administrative processes. This will help you to spot blind spaces and to improve your service quality. 

 How to Build a Healthcare CRM System? 

Now that you know everything about CRM in healthcare, you probably have a clear idea of your project. We will tell you about the things you need to do to build your custom system. Let’s see the stages of its development.

Choosing a Technical Partner

For implementing this project, you need a team of experienced software engineers. To avoid hiring by yourself, you can find software development companies with a ready team of software engineers. Here are the things you need to pay attention to while choosing your software partner:

1. Business expertise

Due to the precise business logic of healthcare projects and strict security requirements, it is better if the company already has experience in healthcare development.

2. Technology expertise

Are you going to create a desktop or web application? Will there be a mobile version? Are there additional features with the use of AI or chatbots? Your development partner must be able to implement all your technical requirements.

3. Price

The work of highly skilled software development teams cannot have a low price. To get good quality and fit your budget, we recommend you consider hiring a Ukrainian development team.

Gathering the Team

During the negotiations, your future tech partner offers you their employees who will work on your project implementation. A software development team consists of the following specialists:

  • A business analyst 
  • A project manager
  • Backend developers
  • Frontend developers
  • A UI\UX designer
  • A QA engineer

A business analyst analyzes the requirements and creates the business logic of the future system. A project manager coordinates the implementation process and serves as a mediator between you as a client and the development team. Sometimes these functions can be done by a single specialist.

Gathering Requirements

Once you have established the team, it comes to deciding on the functionality of the future CRM system. In cooperation with the customer, a business analyst and a project manager create the business logic of a software solution and create a roadmap of project development. Here are some tips for this stage:

  • Come up with the project goals

The functionality of the system will entirely depend on your goals. To maximize the effectiveness of cooperation, we always start with clearing up the customer’s goals and offering ways to achieve them. 

  • Have every single discussion documented

To avoid missing any critical points, our specialists document the discussions. This helps us be in tune with the customers and record all ideas to be implemented in the projects.

  • Analyze the needs of end-users

To make the product that will cover end-users’ needs, we always conduct detailed research of the audience. This increases the user-friendliness of the application and the satisfaction rate.

  • Prioritize the features

Feature prioritization is the best strategy in any product development. To avoid overbudgeting, we define the most critical features of your medical CRM software and start with implementing them. After the product is released, we collect the users’ feedback and, together with the customer, decide which features to add to the following versions.

UI\UX Design

Having finished with the project road mapping, we land on the design stage. The design of a healthcare CRM system should be user-friendly both for the patients and the doctors. During the UI\UX development, we aim at the optimization of user journey inside the application and follow such principles:

  • Mapping the user journey from the point of ”using persona”

We study the desires and logic of the user persona and create the interface based on them. This helps us find and immediately fix any weak spots in the design.

  • Minimizing the number of actions necessary for completing the task

We try to group the functions and make related actions accessible in one click. This helps us reduce the number of unnecessary elements and speed up user interaction with the app.

  • Showing important information at the very beginning of the user journey

Often, a patient or a doctor opens a CRM system just to check the appointment schedule, test results, or pill reminders. To shorten the user journey, we place the most important information on the main screen for users to access it in several seconds.

Development and Testing

Here we come to the actual development process: writing the features from scratch, integrating third-party services, implementing security measures, etc. Each stage of the development process is backed up with tests that help us spot and fix possible issues at the earliest stage.

Release and Maintenance

Even when the product comes to the end-users, our work is not ended yet. We maintain its smooth work, collect feedback, fix minor issues, etc. Our team will update the product, expanding its functionality and growing customer satisfaction.

Why Choose Jelvix as Your Development Partner? 

In healthcare, a CRM system is more than just a replacement of paper documents with electronic ones. Introducing a HIPAA-compliant CRM system will help you enhance your customer experience. This will strengthen your competitiveness and raise the standards of caregiving across the entire market.

The Jelvix team knows, will consult you about the development of CRM in the healthcare industry, and will help verify your idea by conducting proof-of-concept research. We will lead you along all product stages, and the development will require minimum effort from your side.

Healthcare CRM Software

Conclusion

Introducing a CRM system is a way to transform the healthcare industry by strengthening the relationships among clinics, research centers, test labs, doctors, insurance companies, and patients. With a CRM system, you will have plenty of tools to improve the patient’s experience and optimize the doctors’ work.

If you come up with an idea of a CRM for healthcare, leave a message to contact our team.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of healthcare technology, custom CRM solutions stand out by offering personalized patient experiences and operational efficiency. Dive deeper into the world of Healthcare software development with Jelvix to discover how these technologies are shaping the future of healthcare delivery.

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