Healthcare communication is undergoing a paradigm shift, driven by changing patient expectations and technological advancements. The USA remains the largest MedTech market globally, representing 41.6% of the global share, with projections indicating growth at a CAGR of 5.4% to reach nearly $658 billion by 2028. This growth is fueled by an increasing demand for seamless healthcare experiences similar to those in other service industries.
Today’s healthcare consumers want access to care the way they access other services, such as purchasing airline tickets or shopping online. They demand good customer service, price transparency, visible quality indicators, the ability to shop around for services, and most importantly, the ability to engage with their providers in ways that are convenient for patients, not just health care professionals. Salesforce Health Cloud addresses these challenges. Let’s take a closer look at the capabilities.
From Single Channel to Omni-Channel: The Evolution
Healthcare has evolved from single-channel providers (standalone healthcare entry modes) to multichannel providers (offering multiple separate communication channels) to the current omni-channel approach. This evolution fundamentally changes how healthcare organizations interact with patients:
- Single-Channel: Traditional face-to-face consultations with limited integration
- Multichannel: Addition of digital channels like email, phone, and patient portals, but operating in silos
- Omni-Channel: Seamless integration of all channels to provide a unified, consistent patient experience across the care continuum
The latest releases of Salesforce Health Cloud introduced significant enhancements to omni-channel capabilities, providing healthcare organizations with more powerful tools to deliver personalized, integrated care experiences.
Understanding Omni-Channel Communication in Healthcare
Omni-channel communication in healthcare goes far beyond simply offering multiple ways for patients to interact with providers. The traditional model is just about choosing how to communicate: text, voice, agent, post, patient portal, online, e-mail, kiosk.
Now, it has transformed into a holistic approach that integrates various channels to create a seamless, consistent experience throughout the patient journey.
A true omni-channel approach incorporates:
- Seamless connection of multiple communication channels including text, voice, in-person visits, patient portals, email, and kiosks.
- Maintaining consistent messaging, branding, and patient management across all touchpoints.
- Each channel’s awareness of interactions that occurred on other channels.
- A centralized repository of patient information accessible across all channels.
- Tailoring communications based on patient preferences, medical history, and needs.
As highlighted in recent industry studies, healthcare organizations must prioritize transparent communication, cultural competence training, and personalized care to meet patient expectations.
All Patient Data, One Place: Health Cloud’s Unified View
Salesforce Health Cloud provides a comprehensive CRM platform for implementing an effective omni-channel communication strategy in healthcare.
At the core of Health Cloud’s omni-channel capabilities is the unified patient view that creates a comprehensive profile of each patient. Patient data is consolidated from various sources, including electronic health records (EHRs), medical devices, and wearables. Professionals gain a holistic understanding of the patient’s health history, which facilitates personalized communication based on complete patient information.
Omni-channel communication requires a deep understanding of the patient journey. Salesforce Health Cloud provides powerful tools for mapping and optimizing this journey.
What are the touchpoints throughout the patient journey?
- Awareness: Initial patient research and provider selection
- Consideration: Evaluation of treatment options and provider comparison
- Access: Appointment scheduling and pre-visit preparation
- Service Delivery: In-person or virtual care delivery
- Ongoing Care: Follow-up communications and patient care program adherence
Health Cloud’s specialized features support comprehensive patient journey mapping. They visualize the journey from different perspectives:
- Relationships between patients and their care team members, including specialists and other providers
- Chronological patient information, helping care coordinators understand the patient’s complete health profile.
These tools enable healthcare organizations to design more effective communication strategies tailored to specific points in the patient journey.
Driving Patient Participation: Health Cloud Engagement Tools
Patient participation in healthcare has become a cornerstone of modern care delivery. Central to this transformation are patient portals and advanced appointment management features, which empower individuals to take an active role in managing their health.
Patient Portals
Its features aim to empower patients to take an active role in managing their healthcare. Patients gain convenient access to essential health information and tools:
- They can easily view their medical records, including lab results, prescribed medications, and billing information.
- Scheduling appointments is also made simple, with options to book, reschedule, or cancel directly through the portal.
- Automated reminders help ensure patients stay on top of their healthcare commitments, reducing missed appointments.
- Patients can securely message their providers, ask questions, or report symptoms without needing an in-person visit.
- The portal provides access to educational resources tailored to specific conditions or treatments.
- Tools for tracking health progress and managing care plans further enhance patient involvement, encouraging adherence to treatment regimens.
Patient portals take care of the exceptional experience, which leads to a more efficient healthcare system overall.
Intelligent Appointment Management
Salesforce Health Cloud provides an intelligent and centralized scheduling solution designed to streamline workflows, improve resource utilization, and increase patient satisfaction. These capabilities make scheduling efficient and well coordinated:
- Appointment reminders, confirmations, and follow-up communications can be sent automatically through various channels like SMS, email, or patient portals. This reduces administrative burdens and helps minimize no-show rates, ensuring that patients are informed and engaged at every step of their care journey.
- Health Cloud simplifies the management of schedules, room availability, and equipment allocation. It ensures that resources are used efficiently while avoiding scheduling conflicts.
- The platform also empowers patients to book appointments online through patient portals or mobile apps. This self-service functionality offers flexibility and convenience. Patients can schedule appointments at their preferred times, reschedule if needed, and receive automated reminders—all without requiring direct intervention from the care team.
- It helps track key data points such as no-show rates, provider utilization, and patient wait times. These insights allow organizations to identify trends and optimize scheduling practices.
Efficient Communication: Optimizing Health Cloud for Providers
Care Team Collaboration
Health Cloud facilitates seamless collaboration among care team members with a central hub where care team members can access and share patient information. Moreover, it provides secure communication channels for discussing patient care strategies and gives real-time updates and notifications to ensure all team members stay informed.
Digitalization
- Digital Triage: Automated assessment of patient symptoms and routing to appropriate care
- eConsent Forms: Digital consent processes that reduce administrative burden
- Pre-operative Readiness: Online pre-surgical checklists and instructions
Contact Center Solutions
Health Cloud’s Service Cloud integrates patient data from various sources (EHR, appointments, past interactions) into a single agent console. Agents have a 360-degree view of the patient. The system uses rules-based routing to direct inquiries to the most appropriate agent or department based on patient history, issue type, and agent availability.
Regardless of the channel, agents have access to the patient’s context throughout the interaction. This ensures consistent messaging, reduces the need for patients to repeat information, and enhances patient experience.
Mobile access
Omni-channel capabilities are optimized for mobile devices, allowing patients to access support and manage their care on the go. They can engage with the contact center anytime, anywhere, increasing convenience and satisfaction. This is especially important for things like appointment reminders or medication refill requests.
AI-Chatbots and Agentforce Agents
The integration of AI-powered chatbots is also included. They handle routine inquiries such as appointment scheduling, prescription refills, and FAQs. Benefits include reduced contact center volume, 24/7 support, and improved response times, among others. Agentforce AI agents can escalate complex inquiries to human agents, ensuring seamless transitions.
Insurance-Related Interactions Through Omni-Channel
Healthcare systems are using omni-channel communication to simplify insurance tasks. This means things like:
- Automatic Insurance Checks: The system automatically verifies if you’re covered and what your benefits are.
- Online Claim Filing: Doctors and hospitals can send insurance claims electronically.
- Real-Time Updates: You get instant updates on your claim status through text, email, or whatever you prefer.
- Easy Access to Info: Patient portals let you securely see your coverage details, co-pays, and deductibles online.
- Automatic Notifications: You’ll get notified about claim status and any changes to your coverage.
- Online Payments and Billing: You can easily pay bills and view statements online.
Basically, omni-channel communication makes dealing with insurance much faster and easier for both patients and healthcare providers.
Enhancing Omni-Channel Capabilities with the Salesforce Ecosystem
The capabilities of the platform can be further expanded using integration services with other Salesforce products. It is important because they provide a seamless and connected patient experience, reducing the need for patients to provide information multiple times.
Marketing Cloud
It offers personalized customer experiences and optimizes campaigns with data-driven solutions for any channel and device:
- Example: A hospital uses Health Cloud to track patients with diabetes. Marketing Cloud is integrated to send personalized email campaigns with tailored educational content, appointment reminders, and healthy living tips based on each patient’s specific health data and preferences.
Benefit: Increases patient engagement, improves adherence to care plans, and reduces hospital readmissions.
- Example: A healthcare provider uses Marketing Cloud to run targeted campaigns for flu vaccinations. Based on patient demographics and health history from Health Cloud, they send personalized messages via SMS and email, encouraging eligible patients to schedule appointments.
Benefit: Increases vaccination rates and improves preventative care.
Experience Cloud
It helps organizations quickly launch data-powered apps, portals, and sites:
- Example: A healthcare organization uses Experience Cloud to build a secure patient portal that integrates directly with Health Cloud. Patients can access their medical records, schedule appointments, communicate with providers, and view lab results.
Benefit: Improves patient access to information, reduces administrative burden, and enhances patient engagement.
- Example: A network of healthcare providers uses Experience Cloud to create a secure portal for care team collaboration. They can share patient information, coordinate care plans, and communicate in real-time, all integrated with Health Cloud data.
Benefit: Enhances care coordination, improves communication among providers, and reduces errors.
MuleSoft Anypoint Platform
It supports delivery of time-sensitive projects with an efficient platform for integrations and APIs
- Example: A hospital uses MuleSoft to integrate Health Cloud with its legacy EHR system. MuleSoft’s APIs enable seamless data exchange, allowing providers to access patient information from both systems in real-time.
Benefit: Eliminates data silos, improves data accuracy, and enhances care coordination.
- Example: A telehealth provider uses MuleSoft to integrate Health Cloud with remote patient monitoring devices. MuleSoft’s APIs enable real-time data streaming, allowing providers to monitor patient vitals and intervene proactively.
Benefit: Enables remote patient monitoring, improves proactive care, and reduces hospital readmissions.
Keys to Successful Omni-Channel Implementation
There are benefits to implementing omnichannel solutions. Lots of them. And more importantly, they can be measured. But how? There are several indicators worth mentioning, such as:
- Adoption rate: A high adoption rate indicates that the system is easy to use and meets patient needs.
- Patient engagement: This can be measured by tracking appointment attendance, message response rates, and online forum participation.
- Lead generation and conversion: This can be measured by tracking website traffic, appointment bookings, and patient retention rates.
As healthcare continues to evolve toward more consumer-centric models, omni-channel communication will become increasingly essential. With the help of Salesforce development services, organizations can tailor Salesforce Health Cloud to meet their unique needs. Those who embrace these capabilities today will be well positioned to lead in the healthcare ecosystem of tomorrow.
