Harnessing Data to Improve the Patient Experience and Help Your Practice

Here’s How Analytics, Inventory Management and Patient Surveys Can Help

In an increasingly competitive landscape, we need to lean heavily on technology and patient data to keep our patients fully engaged and satisfied with the care they receive. We should be asking not only if our technology can access key information and identify gaps in care, but how well our technology can do it for us. Let’s take a deeper dive into Analytics, Inventory Management and Patient Engagement.

Analytics. An Analytics platform can harness clinical structured data from the EHR to uncover valuable insights to help cater messaging to patients and improve your business.

With Advanced Clinical Targeting, you can generate lists of patients that had Botox in prior months but haven’t received follow-up treatment since. With this information easily displayed in intuitive dashboards, each physician can decide exactly who they want to follow up with through personal calls and even special offers. The same situation would apply to patients that received a cosmetic consultation but never came in. These valuable insights come directly from the clinical plan data and are a distinct perk of having an integrated EHR system like EMA®.

What if you’re looking to grow or make a change at your practice and need to know how much of your cosmetic practice you should build out? The ability to look at a cosmetic dashboard can inform what cosmetic plans, such as if laser hair removal, chemical peels or fillers are contributing to that revenue by provider and, in turn, help you make data-backed decisions.

Inventory Management. How do you currently track your inventory? Do you know when stock is low or on the cusp of expiring? Everything from injectables to aminolevulinic acid (ALA) and sutures need to be tracked carefully. With our Inventory Management system that integrates directly with clinical plans in our EHR system, EMA, and our Practice Management system, you can benefit from a clear understanding of what you have on hand. You can even gain insight into recommended products that your patient opted not to purchase. This powerful tool provides data that can also help keep you from losing money on expired inventory—inventory that you could have run a promotion on prior to expiry.

Patient Surveys. With the proliferation of digital media, including online reviews, how do you capture what your patients are truly thinking once they leave your office? How do you leverage online reviews to promote your practice? Patient Surveys that interface with your practice management system can invite patients to share their experience. Deploying such surveys could help identify areas of improvement in your practice and leverage your patients to be true advocates, not to mention helping provide content for your website, social media and more.

Technology should work for you, your staff and your patients, so that one of the most fun and satisfying pieces of a dermatology practice becomes even more so.

Michael Sherling, MD, MBA

Chief Medical & Strategy Officer and Co-founder