Diagnostic laboratories, along with their counterparts (radiology, home health, etc...), are facing significant changes that require rapid action in a short period of time. The healthcare providers who select lab partners are doing so based on the lab's ability to deliver lab analytics and tracking capabilities to automatically uncover actionable intelligence previously hidden in terabytes of lab data. Further, providers are demanding that their labs become true partners that operate as an extension of each provider's healthcare organization. In the heavily competitive lab market where each opportunity is hotly contested, labs must get beyond traditional lab management tools geared toward managing internal clinical processes and establish a comprehensive view of every client including proactive alerts that drive action in the areas that need it most. All of this needs to happen in real-time.
Lab leaders are attacking this challenge by pursuing both customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence (BI) software solutions. Every day I hear lab executives explain the challgenges they face in coordinating the myriad data silos that house fragments of the total client picture. In some cases, these executives are initially opting to separate their CRM and BI initiatives into two separate projects. The problem with this approach is that it leads to even more disconnected data silos!
This is where the title of this post comes in: The Secret to Lab Success is BOTH Healthcare CRM and BI combined into one lab-specific solution.
The reason for this is simple: All of the data that is stored throughout the lab relates to clients. Healthcare CRM - designed from the ground up to support the unique data model and relationships specific to the lab industry - captures these disparate data elements and AUTOMATICALLY TRANSLATES THEM INTO ACTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE!
Therefore, the link between healthcare CRM and BI is a fundamental mandate that is separating the top performing labs from those who are spending extra time, money, and resources on generic CRM and BI tools that are not designed to support the unique requirements of diagnostic laboratories.
