A disability has become a quite common problem which everyone has heard about or faced. In the USA alone, there are several dozen million people who have difficulties in physical functioning. According to estimates of the National Center for Health Statistics, the number of adults unable (or very difficult) to walk a quarter mile was more than 17 million in 2014.
Population ageing represents one more problem the mankind has started to encounter not so long ago. It will become a particularly acute problem in a few decades. Let’s take a look at the statistics: at present, almost every country in the world experiences growth in both the number and proportion of older persons in their population.
The World Population Ageing Report prepared by the UN in 2015 states that the global population of older persons amounted to approximately 2.1 billion in 2015. The UN also expects that the number of people aged 60 and over will grow by 56% between 2015 and 2030.
Considering the facts mentioned above it is clear that these problems will have huge impact on the society. The smaller number of people will be able to work, while the number of people with disabilities will be higher, and they all will need medical assistance. And provision of such assistance in a timely manner will be of high importance all over the globe.
Usage of equipment ensuring timely connection between a patient and medical profession can eliminate the problem. However, there is one more issue to solve: the number of working people will go down, and those involved in installing these devices, arranging customer support, etc. will be extremely busy with their daily tasks.
Automation is a solution for this puzzle since it enables to reduce time spent on each task and escape the need to appoint extra personnel.
Once we had a similar project. Our customer provided equipment for elderly and disabled people, and the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system was used to manage relations with their customers and partners. But the system did not satisfy the needs of this company to the full extent since the company needed to process big volumes of information like seeking out reliable equipment, coordinating 24-hour monitoring, troubleshooting deployed equipment, choosing installers depending on their location, managing information on agencies, performing billing, etc.
To make the system work properly we automated the processes and integrated it with other systems used by the company.
Here are the processes that were automated:
• Allocation of a device to a patient. Now the system selects a device on the basis of patient’s characteristics.
• Entry of data on appropriate changes into the database. This feature is used when a devices is lost, billion information has changed, a patient changes his/her location, and more.
• Procedures related to the return of the device.
• Entry of changes related to contact information and access to it (for agencies and installers).
Such automation helped the customer to save time and improve coordination with partners.
To sum up, automation can help an organization to deal with problems related to processing large volumes of information. Customization of a standard solution created by an IT giant can be carried out. On the other hand, if a customer has specific needs, a custom solution (like custom healthcare CMS) can be developed.
What other CRM vendors can be customized like this for a medical company? Could Netsuite do the job? What about the other vendors (Salesforce, Salesboom.com, Zoho, etc)?
Jim, thanks for your comment. CRM systems offered by vendors like Netsuite, Salesforce, Salesboom and Zoho can be customized to cater needs of a company. I should note that a degree of customization depends on a system. So the system for a particular company should be chosen first. When you have a CRM system and you would like to customize it, it’s better to consult an experienced IT vendor (like EffectiveSoft where I work) to get professional advice about customization options.