Publish date:

• 24th October, 2024

Healthcare CRM for Patient Management – Exploring Salesforce Health Cloud

More than 600 companies, including industry leaders like Lilly, Pacific Clinics, United Healthcare, and Humana, rely on Salesforce Health Cloud for managing patient data efficiently. In today’s fast-evolving healthcare landscape, managing patient information effectively is crucial for providers. In this blog, we'll explore the features and benefits of Salesforce Health Cloud, from its capabilities to integration options, along with the advanced tools it offers to enhance patient care.

What is Salesforce Health Cloud?

Salesforce Health Cloud is a comprehensive cloud-based solution tailored for the healthcare industry. It centralizes patient data, giving healthcare professionals a 360-degree view of patient records, empowering them to make informed decisions and offer personalized care. By leveraging Salesforce’s robust CRM platform, healthcare providers can enhance patient interactions and streamline workflows.

Salesforce Health Cloud Capabilities

Salesforce Health Cloud is a robust platform designed to elevate healthcare organizations' ability to manage patient care efficiently. Some of its key capabilities include:

1. Patient 360: Gain a real-time, holistic view of each patient, including medical history, treatments, and outcomes. This comprehensive data helps healthcare professionals make more informed decisions and improve the quality of care.

2. Patient Management: Access a centralized overview of patient information, from medical history to ongoing treatments and care plans. This allows for seamless tracking and collaboration across healthcare teams, enhancing patient outcomes.

3. Care Coordination: Connect healthcare providers, caregivers, and patients in a unified platform, ensuring that care teams stay informed and aligned, promoting more effective communication and care delivery.

4. Case Management: Streamline and automate workflows with Health Cloud’s case management tools, ensuring that healthcare teams resolve issues promptly and manage cases efficiently.

5. Health Data Integration: Integrate Health Cloud with various healthcare systems such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs), diagnostic tools, and wearable devices. This consolidation of data offers a more complete and actionable view of the patient's health.

6. Analytics and Insights: leverage powerful analytics to derive insights from patient data, identify trends, and measure healthcare outcomes. This data-driven approach supports more effective decision-making and enhances patient care strategies.

7. Operational Efficiency: Automate tasks, simplify processes, and reduce manual data entry to improve overall operational efficiency. The platform also supports compliance management and helps track performance metrics for better accountability.

8. Clinical Decision Support: Connect EHRs with other clinical systems and provide tools such as drug interaction checkers and clinical guidelines. These features support healthcare professionals in making informed, evidence-based decisions.

9. Population Health Management: Analyse aggregated patient data to detect trends, track health outcomes, and manage patient populations more effectively, ultimately improving patient care and reducing costs.

10. Integration with Salesforce Products: Experience a seamless workflow by integrating Health Cloud with other Salesforce solutions like marketing automation and CRM tools, enhancing both patient engagement and operational efficiency.

11. Telehealth and Remote Monitoring: Facilitate virtual consultations and remote patient monitoring, extending care beyond the clinic and providing continuous support through secure video conferencing and monitoring tools.

12. Security and Compliance: Salesforce Health Cloud adheres to industry-leading security standards like HIPAA, ensuring that sensitive patient information remains protected and compliant with healthcare regulations.

Salesforce in the Healthcare Industry – How Salesforce is Transforming Healthcare

Salesforce is rapidly becoming a go-to solution for healthcare organizations, offering a range of benefits that improve patient care and operational efficiency. Here’s how Salesforce is being used in the healthcare sector:

1. Improved Collaboration: Salesforce facilitates seamless collaboration among care teams, enhancing communication between healthcare providers and patients. This leads to stronger patient-provider relationships and better health outcomes.

2. Adaptability: One of Salesforce’s key strengths is its flexibility. It easily adapts to various healthcare needs and use cases, offering scalable, digital-first solutions that drive innovation and meet the evolving demands of the industry.

3. Enhanced Patient Management: With tools like Salesforce Health Cloud, healthcare providers can gain a comprehensive, 360-degree view of each patient. This enables healthcare professionals to deliver personalized care, streamline workflows, and improve patient relationship management.

4. Connectivity: Salesforce Health Cloud breaks down data silos by connecting disparate healthcare systems. By creating cohesive care teams and improving communication within a patient’s care community, it ensures that everyone involved in a patient’s treatment is aligned.

5. Cost Reduction: By automating tasks and optimizing processes, Salesforce helps healthcare organizations reduce operational costs. Solutions like Salesforce Marketing Cloud also enable providers to refine patient acquisition and retention strategies, ultimately driving efficiency and growth.

Salesforce Health Cloud Features

Salesforce Health Cloud stands out with three key feature sets that enable healthcare organizations to improve patient care, enhance security, and boost team productivity:

1. Data Privacy, Protection, and Integration

Salesforce Health Cloud ensures the highest level of data security and privacy through Salesforce Shield, which includes tools like Shield Platform Encryption, Event Monitoring, and Field Audit Trail. These features allow healthcare providers to maintain robust security protocols, protecting sensitive patient information while enabling seamless integration with electronic health records (EHRs). This ensures that patients stay actively involved in their care while meeting strict compliance standards.

A prime example is Ireland's Health Service Executive (HSE), which implemented Salesforce Health Cloud to achieve data compliance, streamline COVID-19 vaccination efforts, and modernize the overall patient experience.

2. 360-Degree View of Patient Data

Salesforce Health Cloud provides healthcare professionals with a complete, 360-degree view of patient data, including profiles, health records, timelines, and treatment plans. By consolidating all critical information in one place, it eliminates the need to switch between different systems, saving time and improving the patient experience.

Novartis, a leading global pharmaceutical company, transitioned from legacy systems to Salesforce Health Cloud to create a dynamic, multi-channel patient engagement platform. This gave them deeper insights into the patient journey and empowered them to implement more effective care programs.

3. Care Team Productivity

Salesforce Health Cloud enhances care team efficiency by offering tools that allow for personalized, high-quality care. Features like household mappings provide critical insights into a patient’s home environment and needs, helping care teams tailor their approach. Additionally, Salesforce surveys help assess whether patients feel adequately supported by their care teams.

Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan (CDPHP) utilized Salesforce Health Cloud to integrate its health and marketing data, enabling personalized outreach campaigns and improving patient trust. This connected approach resulted in better insights and more effective care delivery.

Salesforce Health Cloud Architecture

Salesforce Health Cloud architecture is a cloud-based system designed to provide healthcare organizations with a comprehensive view of each patient’s medical history, simplifying care coordination among different providers.

The key components of the Salesforce Health Cloud architecture include:

• Salesforce Health Cloud: The core platform that handles patient care management, offering essential features like appointment scheduling, care coordination, and patient engagement tools.

• Middleware: This layer integrates Salesforce Health Cloud with other systems, such as electronic medical records (EMRs) and external scheduling systems, ensuring smooth data flow between platforms.

• REST Calls: These are used to enable communication between various system components, allowing for efficient data exchange.

• HL7: A widely accepted standard for the exchange of healthcare information, ensuring seamless interoperability between different healthcare systems.

In addition, the architecture involves several components, including leads, accounts, contacts, person accounts, cases, and activities. Managed packages further extend functionality by incorporating goals, problems, and custom electronic health record (EHR) tables. For compliance, Salesforce Shield ensures protection for personal health information (PHI).

Other elements include payer, member, and plan coverage benefit data, along with care-related objects like care requests and medications. The architecture also features a customer community specifically designed for patient use, employing unmanaged packages for utilization management. Lastly, the Salesforce Lightning Console enhances the user interface, providing healthcare professionals with a powerful tool for managing patient data effectively.

How the System Operates?

The Salesforce Health Cloud system operates by efficiently managing and routing requests from patients or healthcare providers. When a request is received—such as for an appointment—it is directed to the relevant system components for processing. For instance, if a patient requests an appointment, the middleware layer communicates with the electronic medical records (EMR) system via REST calls to check the patient's availability. If the patient is available, another REST call is made to Salesforce Health Cloud to schedule the appointment.

The system ensures secure data handling and is fully compliant with HIPAA and other relevant healthcare regulations, guaranteeing the protection of sensitive patient information throughout the process.

Salesforce Health Cloud Security – Protect Your Health Data with Salesforce Shield

Salesforce Health Cloud offers a robust security framework for healthcare data management, ensuring that sensitive patient information remains secure. Key security features include:

• Platform Encryption: All data within Salesforce Health Cloud is encrypted at rest, ensuring that even if unauthorized access occurs, the data remains unreadable and protected.

• Event Monitoring: The system tracks all user activities, including logins, data access, and modifications, allowing for the detection and investigation of any suspicious activity.

• Field Audit Trail: This feature keeps a record of all changes made to data fields, making it possible to track who made a modification and when. This is crucial for investigating potential data breaches.

• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): RBAC ensures that only authorized users can view or edit sensitive information. Access is controlled based on user roles, restricting data visibility to those with appropriate permissions.

• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): Salesforce Health Cloud supports 2FA, adding an extra layer of security. Users must enter both their password and a code sent to their phone to log in, further safeguarding user accounts from unauthorized access.

By leveraging these features, Salesforce Health Cloud ensures compliance with healthcare regulations and keeps patient data safe and secure.

Introducing Codleo Consulting's Salesforce Health Cloud Accelerators

Purpose of the Accelerators

At Codleo Consulting, our Salesforce Health Cloud accelerators are designed to meet a variety of healthcare needs, empowering organizations to enhance patient management and care delivery. Here’s how our solutions can transform your healthcare operations:

• Inpatient Management: Optimize inpatient services with real-time visibility into patient statuses and medical records. Our accelerator streamlines admissions, tracks patient progress, and facilitates timely discharges, ensuring personalized and effective care.

• Care Plan: Equip care teams with collaborative tools to create, monitor, and adjust comprehensive patient care plans. This accelerator fosters improved outcomes and enhances patient satisfaction.

• Care Team Coordination: Enhance communication and coordination among care team members, including physicians, nurses, specialists, and caregivers. By ensuring everyone is aligned, we promote efficient and patient-centric care delivery.

• Home Care Plans: Extend care beyond hospital settings with our home-based care plans. Monitor patient progress remotely and empower patients to actively engage in their recovery journey.

• Referral Management: Improve the efficiency of patient referrals to specialists and other healthcare providers. Our accelerator seamlessly tracks and manages referrals, significantly reducing patient wait times.

• Doctor Verification: Build trust by verifying the credentials, licenses, certifications, and clinical experience of medical practitioners. This ensures that only qualified professionals are part of the care team.

• Ayushman Bharat Yojana Integration: For healthcare organizations in India, our solution facilitates seamless integration with the national health insurance scheme. Streamline claim processing and ensure eligible patients receive the benefits they deserve.

• Discharge Summary Automation: Automate the creation of comprehensive and accurate discharge summaries, promoting smooth transitions of care and reducing the risk of readmissions.

As a trusted Salesforce partner and expert Salesforce consultants, Codleo Consulting is committed to delivering innovative solutions that enhance patient care and streamline healthcare operations. Let us help you leverage Salesforce Health Cloud to meet your organization’s unique needs.

Unlock the Full Potential of Your Healthcare Organization with Codleo Consulting

At Codleo Consulting, we specialize in helping healthcare organizations leverage Salesforce Health Cloud to enhance patient care and streamline operations. As trusted Salesforce consultants and a certified Salesforce partner, we provide tailored solutions that align with your specific needs, ensuring you maximize the benefits of this powerful platform. Whether you're looking to improve patient engagement, optimize care management, or integrate data across your systems, our experienced team is here to guide you every step of the way. Contact us today to transform your healthcare services with Salesforce Health Cloud!