This is an adaptation of a story that originally ran in The Dark Daily.
As healthcare steadily shifts from volume to value-based care, organizations are realizing that technology is the key to cutting costs while sustaining and improving quality of lab testing. This includes, of course, customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, which have long been a staple for other industries to track, manage, and visualize key data and information. Today, leading healthcare organizations and laboratories have recognized that the use of a CRM gives them an unprecedented competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Mid America Clinical Laboratories (MACL), a leading reference lab out of Indianapolis, IN, was working with a generic CRM solution since 2004, but in recent years realized there was another layer of metrics and data a generic CRM solutions just couldn't manage.
“Every hospital laboratory understands that the inpatient testing needs of client hospitals are significantly different than the outreach testing needs of office-based physicians,” Mark Ballard, MACL's Chief Information Officer, told Dark Daily. “These are different clients with different service requirements and, for our lab to succeed, we recognized that having real-time data inputs on service levels, workflow issues, and other factors would allow us to do a better job of exceeding the expectations of our clients, be they hospitals or office-based physicians.”
MACL chose the hc1 Healthcare Relationship Cloud to manage their customer service and sales data sources based on hc1's ability to store, associate, and access both historical test data and live feeds.
“One reason we chose this healthcare-specific CRM is because it could incorporate clinical feeds from our two LISs into a single platform,” Ballard told Dark Daily. “That single platform combines both types of clients into one view. Thus, every lab test result that comes out of either LIS goes right into hc1, making it possible for us to monitor operations and workflow throughout our laboratory.”
Today, MACL relies on hc1's healthcare-specific CRM to improve client retention while also supporting the sales team as they win new clients and expand market share. In addition, hc1 enables the staff to collaborate closely with ordering physicians to discuss how to optimize the mix of lab tests they order for patients.
“Here’s just one example. As we all know, colorectal cancer screening is very important when managing the health of any population,” DeeDee Rivas, MACL Sales Director, told Dark Daily. “Our lab can add value by collaborating with a clinic or a physician in identifying patients who aren’t getting colonoscopies, to help ensure that these patients get, at a minimum, at least one of the clinical tests for colorectal cancer screening that our lab offers. By doing that, we help clinicians meet the clinical recommendations and quality metrics for their members and patients.”
Looking towards the future, MACL is considering using hc1 as their business-forecasting solution.
"This is a stepwise progression in how our lab team is learning to use the real-time analytics capabilities of hc1,” Ballard noted to Dark Daily. “We know that as healthcare transforms our laboratory we must be ahead of these changes, and that requires detailed data to inform strategic planning and the successive waves of operational improvements necessary to be a valued clinical partner for our client hospitals and office-based physicians.”
You can read the entire story of MACL and their CRM journey here.
