Patient Relationship Management (PRM) is key to patient engagement, but do you understand the concept of PRM and do you have a strategy for your pharmacy? Many are familiar with the term PMR relating to your Patient Medication Record, a solution such as Analyst used for dispensing. Many will also be familiar with the term Customer Relationship Management (CRM), defined by salesforce as: ‘technology used to manage interactions with customers and potential customers. A CRM system helps organisations build customer relationships and streamline processes so they can increase sales, improve customer service, and increase profitability.’ PRM elevates this, so that it is relevant to healthcare providers in managing their patients needs, building relationships with them and improving communication.
How well do you know your patient?
Your PMR, such as Analyst, displays medication history for the patient so that you can make informed clinical decisions when dispensing. It will also allow you to message the patient to let them know their medication is ready and you may even keep notes of patient preferences or idiosyncrasies within the PMR. That said, using a PMR alone does not represent a customer engagement strategy.
In many pharmacies the telephone is constantly ringing, inbound enquiries from patients asking, ‘Is my prescription ready?’ or ‘Can I pop in for a flu jab?’. Some pharmacies switch on the answer phone or even just take the phone off the hook, to avoid the barrage of calls, but that’s hardly a customer focused response.
What if a patient app could work in tandem with your PMR allowing you to bring these core pharmacy functions together? This would allow you to let technology take the strain off you and your team, as well as improving communication with patients, allowing them to simply order repeats and book services.
In today’s world, patients have become accustomed to simple access to everything they need from the palm of their hand and the way in which they interact with their community pharmacy should be no different. Not only does supporting customers interacting in this way save the pharmacy time by reducing inbound phone calls and drop ins, but it also improves the experience for the patient, strengthening the relationship and improving patient retention. Some patients will always prefer to visit you in person but, especially post-COVID, many don’t want to and enabling them to use your services remotely and digitally is a must if you want to embrace all your potential patients.
How well does your patient know you?
The average person is exposed to in excess of 5,000 adverts every single day. Cutting through the noise is difficult, as is competing with large corporates which have a marketing budget which would make your eyes water! By using a patient app to engage with patients, not only do they get the benefit of an easily accessible and direct link to your pharmacy, but this communication can work both ways. You can easily push notifications to patients to let them know about, for instance, a new service you are offering, even targeting those patients the service most suits, which they can then simply book in the app. The power to promote new services and start generating income quickly is now in your hands.
The USP of community pharmacy is community and how close you are to your community will affect your future opportunities and success. Patients are now five times more likely to visit their community pharmacist than their GP and it’s important that you can support this with an easily accessible and direct link but the key is to work smarter, not harder. Your patient app is a tool which can support with; ordering prescriptions, booking appointments, and even save you money on deliveries.
Mark Merry, Product Strategy Lead at Positive Solution, discussed these challenges live on a webinar recently, looking at how our new patient app, MyHealthHub can help you drive patient engagement, build services revenue and compete with digital players.
