Well-Earned CRM “Magic” at Ochsner Health System

Chelsea Lockhart, marketing manager, Ochsner Health System

Is it possible for health systems to have their own version of “set it and forget it”? Can they really set up campaigns in their CRMs and let them run automatically based on pre-set rules?

Maybe not right out of the gate, but with diligence, healthcare marketers can learn to crawl, then walk, then run when it comes to making the best use of their CRM systems to achieve organizational goals.

Magic. That’s how Chelsea Lockhart, marketing manager at Ochsner Health System, describes having the ability to deploy personalized email campaigns triggered in real time based on data changes. “In the CRM marketing world, I’m going to call it magical, because it really is,” Lockhart says.

It’s not the technology alone that creates the magic, of course. It’s the right tool coupled with the right strategy for building relationships with consumers. Like many health systems, Ochsner had to move away from promoting itself to focusing on consumers’ needs.

“We shifted to thinking about when a patient would need [information] the most, and when they would be most likely to respond based on what they’re going through in their life, at meaningful key moments,” says Brittany Graffagnini, assistant vice president of marketing at Ochsner.

It seems that the standard for all online activity is Amazon, and healthcare is no different from other industries when it comes to drawing comparisons. “When you get these cool systems, you start to have some really big ideas. And we call it the ‘Amazon Challenge,’” Lockhart says. To be like Amazon, a very high level of data integration is necessary.

But health systems are notoriously siloed. For marketers to realize the potential of their CRMs, all that data has to be available and connected. The “crawl” phase for Ochsner involved connecting the dots and making sure its EHR was able to “talk to” its CRM in real time. 

Read the full story now and learn more: Living the Dream of CRM at Ochsner Health System

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President