Standalone EMRs don’t build holistic, patient-centered experiences. To create a strong relationship that will promote better health care and build relationships that will attract a continuous stream of patients, you need to integrate your CRM with marketing. A recent study of 32 hospitals’ websites showed a significant need to improve online patient engagement due to the pandemic and the explosion of digital healthcare. Before we look at the steps to integrating EMR with marketing automation solutions like a customer relationship management (CRM) system, let’s briefly highlight the key benefits.
Benefits of EMR/CRM Integration
Some of the benefits of an integrated EMR/CRM system are:
- Reduce or prevent interrupted care: Your integrated CRM can extract data from your EMR to remind patients about important clinical visits and prevent setbacks or adverse health conditions.
- Alert clinicians and patients about missed visits: A well-designed CRM will notify physicians about incomplete care cycles and inform patients through a call or email.
- Improved patient engagement: Inform patients through personalized content selected by the CRM based on data drawn from the EMR.
- Create rewarding journeys for lifestyle change: Use your CRM to create a rewarding and fun-filled journey that motivates patients to adopt healthy life-changing habits.
- Boost patient satisfaction and loyalty: Use automated surveys to discover what patients liked and what aspects they want to improve.
Integrating your EMR and CRM is not a trivial task. To gain the benefits of integrating your marketing with your EMR, you need a carefully planned strategy. Here are our recommendations for successful integration.
1. Find out what patients want
What was your best customer experience as a patient? Use it as a basis for engaging your patients. A vital goal of your integration effort should be to make healthcare more accessible for your patients. So focus on providing a more satisfying experience.
A recent patient engagement survey revealed that patient portals have made healthcare delivery more impersonal for some patients. That means your integration should focus more on relationship building between patients and care providers.
2. Create a data management strategy.
Develop a strategy that specifies identifying, rationalizing, and storing patient data like IDs, zip codes, phone numbers, and addresses. Be specific about matching criteria because your CRM will need to manage a vast amount of data accurately.
3. Map out data movements
Identify how the data needed by your patient engagement platform will move from source to destination. Decide if you will use HL7 messages or FHIR APIs for real-time data transfers.
4. Integrate in phases
Plan for total integration but implement it in stages. Begin with a small provider-to-patient management team or one call center before you attempt to engage all physicians and patients in daily live chats with all outpatients. Document your challenges and work to solve them as you move to the next stage.
5. Adopt early team engagement
Involve all your physicians and key customer-facing personnel at the planning stage. Paint a clear picture of the benefits of improving patient engagement with modern tools. Keep them informed and receive suggestions and feedback from them as you implement the integration project.
Effective patient engagement through EMR-CRM integration will improve patient care and patient satisfaction. It can also enhance revenues as patients become more loyal and bring more family members and friends to your facility.
Need Help Integrating EMR with Marketing?
Call Lifepoint Informatics at 877.522.8378, and let’s talk. Visit our contact page now and book a free appointment to see a demo of our EMR integration solutions.