September 13, 2023
Outreach means extending services or assistance beyond current or usual limits. In the context of a laboratory outreach program, it involves empowering and effectively serving your customers beyond providing just test results. A laboratory outreach program is essential for any health system looking to increase long-term revenue, fill unused capacity and promote the availability of specialized tests and services.
To effectively serve its outreach customers, a health system must provide feedback on service quality, turnaround times, and any issues that may arise. It is imperative to collaboratively identify areas for improvement and work together to enhance the partnership over time.
A robust operations and customer relationship management (CRM) solution integrated with the Laboratory Information System (LIS) using a real-time HL7 interface can provide the actionable insights and data necessary to target and engage prospects and service existing outreach clients.
hc1 clients leveraging hc1 Operations Management™ and hc1 Performance Analytics™ have grown their outreach labs by as much as 90% in less than five years. Here are five things contributing to their success.
1. End-user adoption and pre-planning bring the team into the platform
With any new software implementation, end-user adoption is key. Before and during the activation process, be sure to include end-users in the requirements-gathering sessions. Seek their feedback in workflow decision-making and look for ways to create efficiencies in their current processes.
2. Training ensures the team is getting the most out of the platform
At go-live, ensure each end-user is fully trained and understands the value of the new software, including how it will make their day-to-day job easier! Side-by-side training with the hc1 enablement team has been highly successful for our end users, so they understand how to find the information they need throughout their day quickly. Also, give managers access to dashboards that will show them how their teams are improving and enable them to identify any gaps in efficiencies.
3. Automation streamlines common tasks
Once your chosen solution, like the hc1 Platform™, is up and running, your team can begin leveraging its capabilities to create prospect records in the system and create tasks to connect with those prospects to establish outreach partnerships that benefit both parties.
Many hc1 clients have leveraged an automated new account setup and onboarding process to streamline time and effort so customers can quickly start sending specimens. Within hc1 Operations Management, hc1 Action Assistant allows a newly closed deal to turn into a sequence of assigned activities for everyone responsible for onboarding a new client. This process gives the sales rep a view into how quickly things are progressing and identifies any roadblocks should they arise.
4. Actionable insights focus the team where they’re most needed
A CRM provides a Rolodex of your clients and their key information, but you need actionable insights into those clients to know where your team should focus their efforts. If order volume from a client drops or a first specimen is not received by an expected date, the rep servicing that account will be notified immediately so they know to take action. Our clients are leveraging hc1 Alerting functionality to provide these leading indicators of client account health.
5. KPI Dashboards and Client Scorecards make preparing QBRs easy
Quarterly Business reviews are a valuable client relationship tool. However, pulling data from multiple systems takes time and effort. hc1 clients are leveraging our KPI dashboards and client scorecards to quickly pull together a meaningful business review with valuable, real-time, actionable insights. Our most successful clients manage Client Services cases in hc1, allowing everyone servicing that Outreach customer to have a full view of their activity from sales to the first specimen received and beyond.
Managing and growing a laboratory outreach program is essential to many health systems. Leveraging a robust operations and customer relationship management solution like hc1’s can provide valuable account health and client insights. I hope these tips help you with a similar implementation!
We’d love to talk with you and show you how your lab or health system can benefit from outreach; please click here to contact us or request a demo of any of our hc1 solutions to get started.
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Jennifer Maxwell is the executive director of client success at hc1 and leads the hc1 Client Success team, focusing on understanding hc1's lab and health system clients who are challenged to do more with less. She understands how actionable, real-time insights can empower a clinical lab to make informed business decisions while providing quality services to physicians and patients.
As part of the hc1 Insights Leadership team, Jennifer is focused on providing technology solutions for labs and health systems that help them optimize and grow their businesses while leveraging clinical data to identify risk signals for chronic diseases and improve patient outcomes.
