Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are not new to healthcare, but the demand for greater patient-centricity, heightened competition from disruptors, and the continued impact of digital transformation have pushed health systems to rethink the utility of CRM to personalize how health systems communicate with patients and consumers. In this member spotlight, Texas Health Resources share how they implemented and use their CRM to generate data informed marketing and communication to improve patient engagement and care experience.

Building an Enterprise-Wide CRM Strategy

• Texas Health Resources recognized the need for a more cohesive infrastructure and initiated an enterprise-wide shift to CRM.​

• Having a CRM at an enterprise level creates a single source of truth on patient preferences and enables organizational alignment on consumer centric initiatives. To get to that point, the following structures were established:​

  • Governance: The CRM is governed through a cross-functional team with stakeholders from operations, strategy, and marketing to drive CRM strategy and use case prioritization.​

  • Ownership: The CRM is managed and utilized by the CRM marketing team, the marketing strategy team, and the data and analytics team.​

  • Change Management: To ensure employees would understand why a CRM is necessary and how to use it, upskilling and broader organizational messaging on CRM’s capabilities were provided.​

• By rebuilding their CRM system under their broader Consumer 360 initiative, they aimed to establish a unified view of patients and prospects across all touchpoints.​

• Specifically, the CRM’s automated dashboard tracks patient engagement metrics like encounters, (email) open rates, and medication refill compliancy, among others. ​

• This data is readily accessible to all organizational members to foster transparency and enable data informed decision-making on specific service lines and partner services.

Customization via Patient Propensity Models​

• CRM infrastructure is also critical for health systems to improve the patient care experience. By providing more customized marketing and communications, health systems can garner more patient loyalty and remain competitive with digitally native market disruptors.​

• To achieve this goal, they developed custom propensity models, enabling the organization to prioritize and tailor communications to patients based on their specific needs, interests, and likely next steps in their care journey. More specifically:​

• Propensity models have specific scoring methodology to drive patient communication. (ex. on a scale of 1-10, how likely is the patient to need a heart or vascular message vs orthopedic message?)​

• New diagnosis or profile changes can move patients into a different category which triggers a care journey and relevant outreach.​

• Through the scoring of patients and leads, targeted messaging is generated based on individual needs, interests, and likely care journey next steps, thereby reducing message volume and increasing relevance.

CRM Use Cases

Patient Engagement Initiatives​

Welcome Series Journey​

• Texas Health obtains email addresses from patients and consumers from a variety of sources. Whenever a unique, new email address comes into the system, a “Welcome Series” email journey is triggered. The 4-part series welcomes viewer to Texas Health and highlights a variety of services including physician finder, Breeze Urgent Care locations and the blog.​

New Movers Program​

• The New Movers Program is designed to generate qualified leads by welcoming residents new to the area and providing an overview of Texas Health. Updated in 2022, the direct mail is printed “in-line” allowing for personalized content and quick changes. A personalized QR code directs recipients to a pre-populated online form where they can subscribe to various health topics and opt in to the monthly e-newsletter.​

  • Personalized to the recipient​

  • Includes map showing nearby Texas Health facilities​

  • Displays Breeze Urgent Care content if a location is near the recipient’s address; default content if not​

Healthy E-News​

• Emailed monthly and features timely and relevant blog articles. The e-newsletter is typically personalized, segmenting audiences based on gender. Subject lines are A/B tested and send-time optimization is leveraged to predict and send emails on the day and time most likely to be opened.

Key Program Outcomes

Future Plans

• Incorporating AI in broader patient communication strategy​

• Building pathways that drive better communication with consumers who aren't patients yet​

• Building out a Customer Data Platform to help store and maintain data.

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