Many health care organizations know the value that a customer relationship management (CRM) system can offer. Improving connectivity among departments and speedier communication with patients are just a few examples. While there are evident challenges facing CRM adoption due to the amount of data within healthcare, CRM is something that practices seem increasingly prepared to embrace.
A health care practice’s outcomes hinge largely on a CRM system working efficiently. Since CRM platforms monitor and support complex patient data and operations, monitoring the CRM’s success is an integral part of your IT team’s role.
However, many practices are unaware of how to map metrics that are collected through their CRM systems, let alone learn from their findings. But there are several key operational metrics that can make all the difference to patient outcomes going forward.
The four most important CRM metrics
1. Average resolution time
According to a Health Mark study of over 200 patients, wait time “affects perceptions of quality, satisfaction and likeability.” It should come as no surprise to those in health care that “wait time” is negatively correlated with satisfaction. Waiting for an issue to be resolved only increases patient frustration and decreases the likelihood of their leaving satisfied.
That’s why average resolution time (ART) is so important. This metric refers to how quickly the patient’s question or needs are addressed. ART is calculated by figuring out the total amount of time taken to resolve the queries of all your patients divided by the number of patients seen within that time frame. The lower your ART score is, the more certain you can be of patient satisfaction. Improved satisfaction means fewer no shows and less wasted time and energy for your staff.
2. First contact resolution
First contact resolution (FCR) is the measure of the requests that are resolved upon first contact with your service staff. A highly important metric, FCR results in fewer total calls, less forwarding of calls, and ultimately greater patient satisfaction.
Thinking back on your best customer service experiences, how many people did you talk to before your situation was resolved? How many times did you have to explain your story, or at the very least, clarify it to a new representative? Generally, people don’t mind waiting if their issue is handled by the first person they speak with, versus having to withstand a number of interactions with more than one representative.
In order to achieve FCR, you need to count your interactions: individual communications between a patient and your organization. It can be a web chat, a telephone conversation, or similar touchpoint. If a patient chats online, then calls and leaves a callback number, and then is called back, that’s three interactions.
Determining the right FCR measurement is critical for patient experience. Measure the number of interactions based on the customer’s goal, not your service. For example, the nurses may say: “We triaged the patient in one contact resolution.” The schedulers may say: “We scheduled the patient in one contact resolution.” But to the patient who left a message for a callback, then was triaged by a nurse, and then was sent to a scheduler, that represents three interactions.
3. Scheduling conversion rates
This metric essentially reveals how easy it was for patients to schedule an appointment with their physicians. A physician survey revealed that after patient no-shows, appointment availability was the biggest challenge they faced. The difficulty in finding a suitable appointment time leaves many patients frustrated and looking for other options. It is important to monitor your scheduling statistics to be sure you are not driving patients away. Besides patient satisfaction, scheduling conversion rate also directly drives your revenue, which is another great reason to focus on it.
You measure scheduling conversion rate by taking the number of appointments made and dividing that by the number of visits to your website for online scheduling. Otherwise, you can divide by the number of inbound scheduling calls.
Of course, there are many challenges facing a good conversion rate. A shortage of physicians amid an increased demand for medical support makes this tricky. However, by knowing your scheduling conversion rate, you can make an informed decision about how to improve. It could be shorter appointments, more virtual appointments, or reducing requirements for your staff to fill out paperwork (which should be digitalized and automated anyway).
4. Appointment lead times
Similar to scheduling conversion rates, appointment lead time refers to the length of time between scheduling an appointment and the appointment taking place. Longer lead times can lead to patient dissatisfaction. What’s more, long lead times are one of the biggest drivers of no-show rates.
When patients can schedule an appointment and come in the next day, the no-show rate declines rapidly. Otherwise, patients become forgetful, dissatisfied, or simply go somewhere else. By tracking your lead time, you can identify and fix these problems before they become a bigger issue.
Luckily, technology is quickly revolutionizing a practice’s ability to assess patient needs and reduce wait times. For example, in the U.K., a Liverpool hospital recently introduced an AI-powered chatbot to its neurology department. It collects information from patients and combines that info with medical history to help clinicians conduct early assessments. Essentially, it can remove the need for an assessment appointment altogether, freeing up clinicians to see more patients.
Looking ahead
There are plenty of other metrics that can drive good healthcare operations. However, for health practices strapped for time and short on staff, these four should make up the main pillars of your strategy. Once you have these metrics in place and start work on improving them, you will see results such as increased revenue and trust among providers, as well as a decrease in complaints.
Tracking these metrics requires a system that captures a patient’s reason for contact and tracks all interactions across the organization until that query is fulfilled. This is why measuring these requires an up-to-date health care CRM, one that can be used across departments and integrated into everything from the phone system to the website to electronic health records (EHR) and practice management (PM) systems.
Measurement, however, is not the end-goal. You want to improve these metrics, and that is where a good health care CRM really shines. Instead of just reporting delays in resolution or number of contacts, it can tell you the reasons for the delays. You can incorporate those into the workflow automation in an effort to resolve them.
A good CRM will facilitate easy scheduling and help your staff accommodate patient requests with less effort. A CRM can also offset revenue loss by offering patients earlier slots via a waitlist. The ultimate winners are your patients—improved patient outcomes mean you’re measuring your practice’s metrics the right way.