Imagine you attend a routine clinic check-up, receive an appointment reminder, and a doctor reviews your medical data. Afterward, a hospital sends you a follow-up to schedule the next appointment. CRM systems make it quick and easy.
Speaking of CRM “money talk,” the global healthcare CRM market size was valued at $17B in 2023, which shows that CRMs are not just a niche product but a significant part of the healthcare industry. Let’s define healthcare CRMs to learn more about their value.
Defining Healthcare CRMs
CRM system (Customer Relationship Management) is software that stores and manages the data in one place. In contrast, healthcare is an industry where businesses provide medical services, manufacture medical equipment or drugs, assist with medical insurance, or otherwise facilitate healthcare provision to patients. Healthcare institutions include pharmacies, dental clinics, hospitals, drug manufacturers, and others. Here are some stats you should know:
- The healthcare industry generates about 30% of the world’s data volume.
- About 750 healthcare AI vendors have been formed in the past seven years.
- 87% of US healthcare providers state that their biggest challenge is staffing shortages.
- 1.3M of new direct-care workers will be needed in the US by 2030 to keep up with demand from older populations and people with disabilities.
Thus, healthcare CRM development is a process of designing, building, and implementing a CRM system specifically tailored for the healthcare industry. A healthcare CRM can track patients’ appointments, treatment plans, and communication processes in the following ways:
- CRMs assist healthcare institutions in securely storing data and providing fast access to it.
- AI implemented into a CRM system enables predictive analysis, content creation, prescription checks (paying attention to allergies), and more.
- CRMs can take on automotive and repetitive tasks, allowing employees to focus on more important duties.
- CRM helps with the hiring process, tracks the training and certification requirements for direct-care workers, and automates communication with patients.
Overall, healthcare CRM development focuses on creating a reliable, secure, and efficient system to enhance patient care, improve communication, and optimize administrative tasks.
To find the best CRM solution that suits your needs, choose its type according to your goals and requests. There are 4 types of healthcare CRMs:
Patient Relationship Management CRM. Pick this if you seek to improve customer relationships and experiences, increase patient loyalty, and boost sales. Such CRMs help manage appointments, create mailings, set up notifications, and personalize communication.
Analytics Healthcare CRM. If your goal is to provide better services and make the right medical decisions, try analytics CRMs. These systems use data from multiple sources, such as the patient’s medical history, allergies, and symptoms, to create the best treatment plan for the person. Analytical CRMs will also examine patient populations and resource utilization.
Referral Management CRM. Want to improve the referral system inside your business? Patient referral management CRMs streamline the referral process, automate tasks, and track the progress of each referral. Such solutions can save you both time and money.
Clinical Custom CRM. If you need to improve clinical workflows, try clinical healthcare CRM solutions, often integrated with EHRs. These systems will help organize documentation, care coordination, and treatment planning.
As the healthcare industry shifts towards a more patient-centric approach, CRMs become essential in delivering better care, improving communication, and streamlining administrative tasks.
Healthcare CRM Software: Main Functions
Let’s talk more about the features of CRMs that impact the healthcare industry. Now, almost 91% of businesses with 10+ employees use a CRM, which highlights the importance of such systems overall. Here are some of the main healthcare CRM functions:
- Data management. A system stores, manages, and organizes patients’ medical histories, treatment plans, contact details, and appointment records. For example, when patients come in for a check-up, the doctor quickly accesses their current medications and recent test results without flipping through paper files.
- Appointment scheduling and reminders. Healthcare CRMs simplify the scheduling process by automating tasks such as setting reminders, sending confirmations, and rescheduling when necessary. When a patient books an appointment online, a CRM ensures that the information is recorded and sends reminders before the visit.
- Communication and engagement. The system sends out educational newsletters with tips on managing chronic conditions, congratulating people on their birthday with a discount, and much more.
- Follow-up care. Healthcare CRMs send follow-ups (to check patients’ progress) or reminders to clients to take their medications. This way, patients receive continuous care and support.
- Analytics and reports. Healthcare CRMs can improve business strategies, administer resources, and even predict company needs by working with data and analyzing it. CRMs gather and analyze data, which you can use to monitor performance, track KPIs, and make data-driven decisions.
- Integration with other systems. To get the most out of healthcare CRMs, connect them with EHR, EMRs, QMS, RIS, and APIs.
- Marketing and patient acquisition. CRM systems help businesses gain leads and communicate with audiences via promotions, mailings, ads, and personalized offers. They also support managing marketing campaigns, so you can use them to target specific groups for promotions, health check-ups, or preventive screenings.
- Task management for staff. A CRM can help healthcare staff by assigning tasks, setting deadlines, and tracking progress. Using a CRM will minimize human errors, reduce manual tasks, streamline the workflow, and save employees’ time for more important work.
These functions make CRM a powerful tool that helps providers deliver better, more personalized care while improving efficiency and patient satisfaction.
What are the Benefits?
According to Zippia data, 45% of companies stated that CRM software increased their sales revenue. If you are still concerned about using CRMs, their main benefits include:
Minimization of errors
According to human factor studies, human error is the root cause of almost 80% of major accidents. In the healthcare industry, such mistakes can lead to erroneous prescriptions, false diagnoses, and even patient death. CRMs cause no errors if the data is put correctly. With a clear head from repetitive tasks that CRM takes on, employees make decisions more deliberately. Besides, with such systems, patients won't need to guess what is written on the paper due to illegible handwriting.
Customer experience improvement
As statistics show, 73% of US adults say the healthcare system fails to meet their needs. With reminder messages, educational mailings, surveys after appointments, and personalized offers that CRM can handle, the customer experience will be enhanced, as will patients’ loyalty.
Secure data management and storage
This system gathers information from multiple sources (EHR, treatment plans, and QMS) and enables quick access to all important patient data. CRM software, thanks to AI and automation, enhances accuracy, efficiency, and accessibility in the healthcare business. With strong cybersecurity (unauthorized access blockage, multi-layered authentication, ISO/IEC 27001 certification, etc.), all the sensitive data will be protected. Furthermore, CRMs often have built-in security measures, such as encryption, audit trails, and password systems.
At Curie Tech, we already worked with a medical institution. Our client needed to automate, analyze, and extract key information from patient calls, integrate it into the CRM, and update profiles. The solution we delivered complies with Germany's stringent security requirements, ensuring autonomous and reliable operation without external connections. Check the case study here.
Processes optimization
With all data gathered in one place, the company’s processes will improve, and here’s how: for example, fewer patients will be late due to reminder messages, and managers will be able to track employees' KPIs and make result-based decisions. A CRM can also send out invoices, track payments, and remind patients about outstanding balances, which helps healthcare providers maintain a steady cash flow.
Curie Tech has extensive experience in the healthcare sector. For instance, our team developed a CRM solution for a German pharmacy, incorporating voice-to-text technology. This system transforms real-time conversations into text, uses AI (Llama) to analyze data, and automatically updates the CRM. Check out the case study via the link to learn more.
Implementing CRMs for Healthcare: A Step-by-Step Guide
Ready to boost your sales, improve the customer experience, and save your staff’s time? It’s time to implement a CRM into your healthcare business! To proceed, follow these steps:
1. Find a developer. For the healthcare industry, custom CRM solutions are crucial because ready-made software is often unscalable and incompatible with other software. While looking for a vendor, pay attention to its experience, cases, used technologies, and customer reviews.
Curie Tech is a full-service software developer with years of experience and hundreds of delighted clients. With us, you can get a CRM with a customized dashboard, AI (Llama), voice-to-text technology, AES-256 encryption, and compliance with the stringent security requirements of your country. Check out case studies here.
2. Set the goals. After starting a cooperation with a developer, analyze your business and find out what features and options are a must for you. Often vendors make such an analysis on their own, but you still need to take part in that process to ensure your product concept, business goals, and target audience are defined correctly.
3. Check out the prototype. When your CRM’s MVP is ready, check it out to make sure everything works and looks fine. At that stage, you can add some changes and options, like API integration, AI reports and forecasts, a mobile CRM app, file sync from other systems, etc.
4. Test the product. If everything is done, install your CRM and test as many functions as you can. The solution should be fast, user-friendly, and scalable. For a healthcare business, CRM should comply with medical regulations, like HIPAA, ISO certification, and others. Laws differ from country to country, but the point is to secure sensitive patient data by blocking unauthorized access, employing blockchain for data encryption, training the staff on avoiding fraud and cyberattacks, upgrading legacy systems, and so on.
5. Educate your staff. Even the best CRM won’t be effective if the personnel don’t know how to use it. Provide training sessions for all team members, including doctors, nurses, administrators, and IT staff. Make sure employees understand how CRM works and how to access patient data, communicate with patients through the system, and handle technical issues.
6. Optimize CRM regularly. Implementing a CRM is not a one-time task; it requires ongoing optimization. Review the system, analyze key performance indicators (KPIs), and gather feedback from staff periodically. Look for ways to improve the CRM’s functionality, add new features, or adjust workflows to make the system even more efficient.
Wrapping up
A CRM, as stats show, helps 86% of businesses exceed their sales goals. Speaking of healthcare, such a system assists companies in enhancing patient care, streamlining administrative tasks, and improving communication. With this software, healthcare providers can forget about manual data entry, missed appointments, and prescription typos. CRM handles tasks like automated scheduling, follow-up reminders, and centralized patient information. This not only improves efficiency but also ensures a seamless and personalized experience for every patient.
Begin your CRM journey with Curie Tech, a software developer with extensive IT market expertise. Our CRM solutions include full-cycle services, from implementation to maintenance. Whether you need to build a new CRM or improve an existing one, we are there for you at every stage of your project!