Apps Help Healthcare & Life Sciences Organizations Achieve More Collaboration & Efficiency

Winter Series Part II – Making Connections

“Connecting systems is a key component to fully realizing the capabilities of new technologies — and, as Salesforce's Chief Health Officer Fatima Paruk sees it, a competitive differentiator. 'Connecting systems is the key to better collaboration, data activation, and more efficient business operations. Going forward it will prove to be the fundamental differentiator between organizations that survive and those that thrive,'” said Paruk in the Salesforce, Healthcare and Life Sciences Insights, 2023 report.

What gets in the way of HLS organizations improving connectivity? “Siloed data, manual processes, and lack of resources make it difficult to collaborate, and nearly impossible to activate the data at their disposal,” explains the Salesforce® report.

In fact, 55% of HLS workers reported that barriers such as inefficient processes and manual entry are reducing their productivity. Complicating things further, healthcare organizations are using an average of 46 different systems. While 79% of healthcare workers listed automation as important to their organization's future, only 12% of organizations have reached their digital transformation goals. 

The Healthcare and Life Science Insights report also found that HLS leaders are facing challenges due to staffing shortages and economic uncertainty. The result is that they are pressured to do more with reduced resources.

HLS Organizations Seeing the Postive Impact of Digital Investments 

But when HLS organizations invest in digital solutions, they see results that can help them overcome challenges. HLS Leaders say investments in automated workflows increased productivity by 73% and investments in real-time data and consumer insights have increased their productivity by 60%.

“Speed-oriented tools that reduce manual processes, like automation and real-time insights are delivering the biggest productivity boosts by a wide margin. However, technologies that unlock the ability to make data-driven decisions, facilitate collaboration, and streamline processes are also having a positive effect,” explains the Salesforce report.

How can digital investments impact the bottom-line? A McKinsey article found: “Life sciences DnA [digital and analytics] leaders surveyed estimate that digital and analytics drove a 5 to 15 percent bottom-line improvement in specific pockets of their functional areas over the past five years, yielding an annual global impact of $6 billion to $9 billion. This compares with an estimated $130 billion to $190 billion that the full application of digital solutions and innovation along the life sciences value chain could bring.”

Following are stories of how our apps help healthcare and life sciences customers improve their productivity, data quality, and collaboration, resulting in reduced costs and improved business decisions.

Extending Salesforce & Reducing Costs for Grifols USA

With more than 18,000 employees in the U.S. Grifols is one of the largest producers of lifesaving plasma medicines and innovative biopharmaceutical solutions in the world. They needed to summarize the number of related items to Accounts and Contacts, and present that information to the user on those records. “We also use this same information on several reports,” said Jay Bolick, Director, CRM Global Biopharma at Grifols.

“The use of these Rollups and Lookups has made our team more efficient while meeting key business needs for data needed to enable key business decisions," explained Jay. (Read Rollup Helper & Lookup Helper Extend Salesforce & Reduce Costs for Grifols USA.)

Integrating Pharmaceutical Company’s New Business Process 

When a global research-focused pharmaceutical company needed a solution that would help them create a new business process from two older systems as well as their accounting system, they turned to Passage Technology. “We created an integration for their financials that included invoices with separation between internal and external expenses,” explains Brent Gossett, Executive Director, Passage Technology. (Read Custom Process Management Solution for Pharmaceutical Company.)

Growing Healthcare Organization’s Project Management Solution

The Healthier Kids Foundation needed a more structured approach for project management. The team was using emails, Word documents, spreadsheets, and Outlook Calendars to manage projects, but they weren’t able to track how much work was coming in or who was doing the work. 

Healthier Kids needed a solution that was integrated with Salesforce, so they chose Milestones PM+ to help organize projects. “This eliminated the chaos and brought us a source of communication on who is requesting the work and what they’re requesting,” explained Healthier Kids Chief of Staff, VP Information Systems and Quality, Bob Hansen. (Read Milestones PM+ Helps the Healthier Kids Foundation Manage Projects and Focus on Their Mission.)

Use Cases for Healthcare & Life Sciences

Creating Grandchild Rollups

Names of Child Accounts on Parent Account

Finding and Fixing Duplicate Contacts in Salesforce

Mass Delete Old Emails, Auto-Responses & Case Email Messages

Top Five Ways to Use Lookup Helper and Rollup Helper Together

Equipment Inspection Checklist in Salesforce (preventative maintenance)

Milestone Billing Automation with Revenue Cloud, Salesforce CPQ

New Location Opening: manage plans easily with Salesforce projects

Manage Employee Onboarding with Reusable Project Templates

This blog is the second in our special Winter Series. The series explores the needs and challenges of Salesforce industries and provides resources on how to leverage our apps for digital transformation. Check our e-Book series Essential Guides for Business Transformation (revised and updated for 2024), which shows how the Salesforce Platform can be extended, so you can take your business to the next level. Stay tuned for more!