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3 Best Practices for a 360-Degree Patient View in Salesforce

Aug 18, 2021 Sam Yehya

Modern healthcare technology is not only enabling that purpose. It’s paving the way for providers to offer even more personalized care.

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A drive toward patient-centered, quality care is allowing providers to return to what they got into healthcare for in the first place - heal people and help them live a better, healthier life. Modern healthcare technology is not only enabling that purpose. It’s paving the way for providers to offer even more personalized care.

Leading this enablement is Salesforce with its Health Cloud platform. Health Cloud doesn’t replace existing systems, like EMR or billing. Instead, it integrates into the existing ecosystem to enhance understanding, communicating, and caring for patients, unlike anything before it.

Part of the reason the platform is so powerful for today’s healthcare providers is Health Cloud’s ability to create a 360-degree view of a patient. With a complete patient view, support staff can quickly understand everything from contact preferences to services that have already been scheduled or completed to what pharmacy the patient uses most. Clinicians can see past and scheduled actions, review care plans, and provide better, safer care.

To get the most out of the patient 360-degree view in Health Cloud, though, there are some best practices that you should be following. We’ve identified a few best practices that are particularly meaningful for seeing the whole patient and leveraging the platform to its fullest.

 

Best Practices for a 360-degree Patient View with Salesforce Health Cloud

Speak the Same Language with Code Sets

A 360-degree patient view only works if the information included is accurate and understandable by those accessing it. If a patient is moved from one facility to another, or even between clinicians, there must be no room for interpretation on what has been done or the care plans in place.

This is typically avoided by using terminology systems like Coding, Codeable Concepts, and Value Sets, which standardize the definitions for clarity across providers. Yet each practice or provider area uses different types and ranges of codes - those that apply to an obstetrician likely don’t overlap with a podiatrist or a psychologist.

Because of this, Salesforce does not load codes - what the platform refers to as Code Sets - or Codeable Concepts - what Health Cloud calls code set bundle - into objects. Your implementation of Health Cloud should have the Code Sets, or Code Set Bundles populated that are appropriate to your practice or clinic to ensure a common language between you and any other provider, payer, or clinic.

 

Leverage the Platform as Designed

Salesforce added Health Cloud once they saw the need for a common platform across the healthcare industry and a way to clearly see and communicate about and with a patient. Of course, that means that many of the concepts about an individual were already in use in Salesforce, even those that might not make sense in the context of a medical practice.

For instance, while the platform offers the concept of a candidate patient as someone who has not yet become a patient of the practice, it’s better to use leads for these individuals. Sticking with the way the platform uses these objects will save you problems when new features are available in updates.

The same thing is true of things like accounts. You may think of an account as everyone in a single household that has a common responsible party, while individuals are referred to as patients. Unfortunately, if you use Salesforce this way, you may not be able to use some of the features that make a 360-degree patient view useful, like patient cards. Instead, you should mirror the platform’s definition and keep the relationship of an account as an individual or patient and not a group.

 

Upgrade to Lightning

Salesforce is constantly adding updates to the platform. However, some long-time users miss out on these new features because they continue to use Salesforce Classic. While the company hasn’t released a date for sunsetting the old platform, providers who haven’t migrated to Lightning could be missing out on some powerful and valuable tools that give a complete view of the patient.

For instance, the Winter ‘20 release included a patient-centered provider search to quickly get your patients the quality help they need. In the same release, Salesforce added the ability to filter by life events, providing a path for healthcare professionals to deepen the relationship with their patients and better align care plans that fit a patient’s life and current situation.

Salesforce’s Health Cloud enables providers to go far beyond addressing the issues a patient is having today and migrates the conversation to personalized, proactive care. This not only improves the patient’s health but engages the patient and creates a more satisfying experience. Health Cloud gives you the tools to illustrate to your patients that you care for them as individuals, which shows at every level of your organization and shines through at every touchpoint.

A 360-degree patient view offers the chance for everyone involved in a patient’s care to work from the same page. There is no confusion over what was done in another office, at another time, or by another provider. There is no relying on a patient to understand the intricate details of their care plan or to remember to drag records from one appointment to another. Plus, a complete view lets care providers view everything that can influence a patient’s health and well-being through a single portal.

Whether you’re just starting out using Health Cloud, you want to refactor how Health Cloud is being used in your business, or you’re looking for ways to take advantage of everything the platform has to offer, Six Consulting can help. Our Salesforce experts have deep knowledge of Health Cloud and can implement your customized platform to work for you and your patients.

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