Making change that matters

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Silverline is aiding healthcare organizations of all sizes create better patient experiences, build their digital transformation journey, and help close gaps in care.

As the industry moves increasingly towards value-based care, the very fabric of healthcare CRM is shifting, and Silverline is on the forefront with Salesforce at its core, providing implementation services, strategic capabilities, and managed services. The metrics of success for these enterprises has shifted from simply judging how quickly a customer interaction takes place to understanding the real value of the experience.

Silverline is guiding healthcare enterprises toward greater degrees of patient engagement and satisfaction, with a platform that offers a 360-degree view of both the patient and the provider.

“The patient and member access side of the house is a very big piece of what we do,” Senior Vice President and GM of Silverline’s Healthcare and Life Sciences practice Matt Gretczko said. “When a patient interacts with a healthcare organization, whether it's to make an appointment, pay a bill, or to learn about services and associated coverages, we are deploying curated workflow and insights informed by data that make that process much more efficient and much more engaging.”

He added, “We think about patient engagement as the experience of the patient before, during, and after a clinical episode. EHRs are great when there's a clinical interaction. If you go into a hospital, the EHR knows about it. When you go to a doctor’s appointment, the practice management system knows about it. What EHRs can’t do,  is engage with a patient after they leave, or often even more importantly, proactively advise what they should be doing to avoid an illness and close care gaps. How do you follow up with their appointment and find out if they're following adherence criteria? Before going to the appointment how do you allow them to fill out their forms and do all their intake and admission electronically? How do you avoid duplicating that effort?” It’s also about engaging with individuals across multiple channels, whether by phone, email, chat, or text.

The digital front door represents the growing expectation from consumers for seamless, easy healthcare experiences, often using technology already in everyday use, such as a mobile device. Providers, payers, and life sciences organizations must invest in the appropriate technology that allows them to meet this expectation. It’s not only customers who demand these new digital tools—it’s employees as well. Why? Not just because it makes their job easier and more effective, but because it’s familiar and convenient. They use these devices in their everyday lives, too.

As a society, we expect personalized, seamless experiences using our mobile devices and other easily accessible technology. The same focus on personalization, on demand, and self-service that allow consumers to hail a car service, order delivery from a restaurant, or automatically restock basic toiletries is required and starting to occur in healthcare, too. Silverline asks, “Why should the management of our healthcare have different expectations?” The notion of Virtual or Telehealth is just becoming Health.

Another situation Silverline frequently deals with is a scenario that keeps many healthcare CIOs awake at night: The organization has set its sights on interoperability (the ability of different IT systems and software to speak to one another and make the best use of the data they exchange), but a “repeat as needed” prescription for solving every problem that arises with a different software application is proving to be bad medicine for the organism as a whole.

“You have a lot of different applications using the same data sets, yet it’s not maintained holistically, so when you start to focus on interoperability and why it’s such a challenge, it’s not just because the EHR isn’t playing nice. It's because there are so many independent applications that have been implemented to solve one problem or need versus creating a scaled platform approach using consistent records of patients, providers, and other key clinical, social, or environmental data that drive engagement activities. This is the path to patient and provider 360,” Gretczko explained.

As the largest standalone Salesforce implementation partner in North America, Silverline is helping healthcare organizations of every size and vertical transform and meet their most ambitious goals—whether that is patient acquisition, improved services, increased market share, new product offerings, enhanced engagement, or a host of other strategic focuses. The Salesforce platform, originally developed for sellers, now has a robust Health Cloud solution that is continuously evolving to address the specific needs of the industry as digital, engagement, and value take center stage. “Salesforce Health Cloud allows us to solve a host of different problems for the digitally modern, value-focused, and agile driven healthcare organizations, with a singular vision to better leverage data to create a more insight driven, personal, and engaging healthcare experience,” he said.

On the tactical side, Silverline helps organizations focus on closing gaps in patient care and delivering better services. “The ability to have a digital infrastructure that allows you to get better access to the services or the answers to the questions you need solved, drives higher patient engagement, and if you're interacting with those people in the right ways you now have an opportunity to make sure that you are closing those gaps in care and better managing and coordinating that care, whether it’s a chronic illness or a wellness visit, now you're really starting to treat that individual over the course of a lifetime, over the course of their journey, versus only caring about them when they step into the ER.”

Silverline partners with a variety of heavy hitters, including Cerner. According to Gretczko, “Cerner has a population health platform. They are consuming tens and hundreds of different data sources and they are able to push that information into Salesforce and we’re able to use that information to help identify how to close gaps in patient care through their HealtheCRM product.”

Industry-specific product innovator Vlocity, recently acquired by Salesforce, helps payers replace their core systems with cloud applications, which Gretczko noted is a significant shift for an industry notoriously slow to embrace cloud technology. They also collaborate with Symphony RM, which uses AI to identify the most valuable interactions in the right channels to power clear and comprehensive healthcare communications. Other partners such as Docusign are leveraged in order to facilitate the move toward electronic and digital form completion, while Riva gives the ability to ensure seamless integration between Salesforce, email, and calendars to eliminate duplication and ensure effective execution of tasks.

“At the end of the day, our role is helping these organizations establish and execute on a roadmap that allows them to remain focused on delivering high quality care, while simultaneously evolving into a digital first organization driving engagement  above and beyond the clinical interaction leading to better ownership of a patients and members journey,” he said.