Better Patient Satisfaction and Improved Health Services with Microsoft Dynamic CRM -
A Case Study on Hospital/ Health Care Management
Executive Summary
A health care, charitable, and not-for-profit organization in South Australia that was established in the early 1960’s provides services to children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and their guardians. Autism is a disorder in which a child lacks social, mental, and linguistic skills. The guardians and teachers need special training, and the patients are given treatments like therapy, physical and behavioral training, consultation, and sometimes medications. The trainers, doctors, consultants, therapists, etc. are contacted for training and treatment schedules, so their database and appointments need to be managed. The child and his/her parents are contacted for diagnosis and, if detected positive, treatment. Case files were maintained for individual patients. In this organization, the number of patients increased which resulted in mismanagement due to scattered databases, case files, appointment files, etc. Everything was manually managed by the internal staff and nothing was organized. Retrieving information took too long and most of it was lost. We helped them through customized CRM implementation, and most of their issues were resolved, especially their customer satisfaction levels.
Problem Faced By the Organization
There were many small issues that became increasingly difficult to handle. Here are some of those issues:
1. Everything was recorded on paper - there was no automation.
2. Information was scattered and difficult to retrieve.
3. Case files were disorganized and sometimes lead to serious problems for the patients and guardians.
4. Autism is difficult to diagnose directly because patients may have other diseases as well. Doctors and physicians of such diseases were contacted for referrals. However, a centralized database was missing for these contacts.
5. Patient’s case history and treatments were the most important information to be managed, yet there was no system to organize them.
6. Appointment management for patients and the consultant/therapist/trainer/doctors/physicians were missing which lead to customer dissatisfaction and overlapping schedules.
7. There are many government agencies and organizations that fund these treatments, yet there was no management of any of these funds.
8. There was no respite center management system, which increased competition and poor customer satisfaction.
Increasing competition and poor customer satisfaction was the result of above drawbacks
Solutions that they tried before contacting us
The problems increased within the organization due to the delay in retrieving information. The organization tried to automate the information by using Excel sheets and other legacy systems, but there was no central database and they were individually maintained. Their problems worsened as more information was missing.
Our Solution-what we have done through CRM
We encouraged them to set up a Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 based customized system to cater most of their needs. We provided the following functionalities:
1. Contact Management- Managing contacts like children (patients), parents/carer/legal organization, teachers, and doctors/consultant/therapist/senior diagnostic. Also, managing accounts like schools, government agencies, insurance companies, and other NGO’s.
2. Consent Management- The patients are contacted for Autism assessment. They are given two reminders via emails. If the response is no, the contact is dropped from the list. If the response is yes, the next process is continued.
3. Communication Management- It helped in communicating responses, approvals, acceptances, and appointments.
4. Diagnostic management- Diagnosis is done, then reports and graphs are generated.
5. Patient’s information/case management- Storing and updating their case history, treatments, and medications
6. Respite center management- For managing respite centers for availability and patient treatment records.
7. Service Management and Scheduling - There are various services available like therapy services, medication and physical services, counseling of patients, and parents. The various therapists, doctors, consultants, and senior diagnostics are also scheduled for the patients.
8. Referral Management System- For doctors/physicians dealing with probable diseases in an autistic child. It also contacts schools for referrals and assessing children between 6-12 years old.
9. Funding source management- There are government agencies, legal organizations, National Insurance Institutions, and other NGO’s that help fund the treatment of autistic children. Their contact details and terms and conditions are managed here.
10. Delivery time of service Management-The services are assigned to a patient, and an estimated cost is calculated on the basis of delivery time and hourly rate. A quote is sent to the parent/carer/legal organization for acceptance. If accepted, the quote is converted to an order and later to an invoice.
11. Fund raising and Payment Management – Sources are searched to raise funds for treatment charges. Partial payments and full payment are done through these sources, or the remaining amount is paid by the patient himself/herself.
Technology Used
1. Microsoft Dynamic CRM 2011
2. Microsoft Outlook 2010
3. Microsoft .NET Framework
4. XRM CRM Implementation
Client Benefits –their improved statistics (Facts and Figures)
With fully automatic processes and a centralized system in place, there was improved efficiency in the organization. The guardians were happier than ever, and personalized attention towards each patient resulted in higher customer satisfaction and a better success rate in patient treatment. Also, the organization managed the funding sources better.