HIMSSCast: The next big investment in patient experience is the CRM

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For hospitals to fully understand the patient experience, integration of the clinical, financial and communications sides of the patient journey is needed, according to Kelly Arduino, Healthcare Industry Leader at Wipfli.

The electronic health record has the clinical side covered and the majority of  hospitals have an EHR. The financial side is available in software called Enterprise Resource Planning.

The third piece is Customer Relationship Management, which is software to view communications, such as, for example, whether a patient has scheduled a follow-up appointment to a procedure.

To date very few organizations have all three connected.

When hospitals do integrate, “You kind of start to be able to manage the back office operations of the healthcare entity through these systems that become interconnected and give you a holistic picture.”

For more on how all of these components work and what’s next, listen to Arduino’s conversation with Susan Morse, executive editor of Healthcare Finance News.
 

Talking Points:

• Wipfli doesn’t provide the software, but helps health systems navigate the process;
• The concept of a digital adviser is emerging to help providers navigate investments;
• This is not a nursing or a financial position but teams managing the digitization of the hospital;
• Big systems are starting to see a new department, a new area, emerge;
• The ERP, Enterprise Resource Planning, offers financial data and has a component of revenue cycle management; 
• ERPs can put together financial statements;
• ERPs have the capability to buy materials by shopping, finding the best price, ordering and putting the purchase into an accounts payable;
• The financial piece can be integrated into the EHR where clinicians can see the treatment, supplies provided, bill and payment for the individual patient;
• Systems can see where they’re spending or losing money in providing services.

More About this Episode:

Oracle debuts tool to help healthcare organizations manage supplier relationships

EHR vendors still falling short on interoperability, data integration

Hospital, health system leaders address continued cost pressures

Hard-to-use EHRs may result in patient harm

New Oracle EHR promises AI-enabled reinvention

Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org