Customers demand better experiences from the companies with whom they interact, regardless of the industry. While the healthcare industry is unique in some important ways, it is also feeling the pressure to deliver more personalized and relevant experiences to its customers. Healthcare providers, insurers, and pharma companies are sitting on mountains of data poised to do just that — only the data has traditionally been caught in siloed and slow moving legacy systems.

Today, cloud technology has become a pivotal tool in breaking siloes, rapidly standing up new marketing capabilities, and connecting data across key touchpoints along the customer journey. Cloud has turned technology from a barrier into the enabler that should be included in the customer experience.

Exploring cloud-enabled experiences in healthcare

Cloud is the tool that will help companies orchestrate personalized customer experiences in the healthcare industry.

For example, pharma companies have different constituents to serve, which are too often treated as siloes. By connecting data on the cloud, pharma companies can orchestrate the experience of doctors, sales reps, and patients into an interconnected system facilitated by the pharma company’s web, virtual chat, and email experience. At each step in the journey, a pharma company can seamlessly help a sales representative reach out to a healthcare professional (HCP), help the HCP deliver treatment information to a patient, and support script writing and co-pay activation, which initiates relationship nurturing efforts between the sales representative and the prescribing doctor.

For insurers, cloud technology enables the data integration capabilities to drive customer acquisition, which often requires orchestration of a host of channels including digital media, web experiences, email, direct mail, and SMS. By connecting data, insurers can deliver better media placements, optimize attribution, provide relevant web and virtual chat experiences, and drive email and SMS nurture campaigns that deliver important updates and benefits regarding customer-specific coverages.

Making the cloud vision a reality in healthcare

Of course, orchestrating customer experiences is not without its challenges. While healthcare companies have a wealth of data, many face technology and regulatory barriers when it comes to activating that data. On the technology front, on-premises legacy systems are too often siloed, and aren’t likely equipped to handle today’s customer analytics and data needs. Attempting to retrofit them for these newer uses is often too complex, expensive, and time consuming to be worth the effort.

On the other hand, the healthcare industry needs to comply with a variety of strict regulations such as HIPAA, a number of data and privacy regulations, as well as a medical and legal review process that can limit the creation of experiences from a content perspective. Though, these challenges ultimately extend to all of the technology investments that healthcare companies make, with the right plan and or partnership in place, all of these data, privacy, and regulatory considerations can be addressed to ensure a safe and compliant activation of data on the cloud. The opportunity of the cloud is too great to let this work prevent a company from moving forward.

Moving to the cloud is a process, and it won’t happen overnight. A great place to start the transition is at the foundational data consolidation layer. A healthcare company cannot orchestrate a set of connected and personalized experiences across lines of business without first integrating the different data sets that power them. Once that data is in a consolidated view—when identity is connected across those different domains—a healthcare company can start to analyze its current state journeys and behaviors, evaluate value at the action and individual level, and design and orchestrate experiences that delight constituents, inspire them to take deeper action, and realize more value for the company.

To repeat, the data foundation is the first place to start. The next question to consider is, “How can that data be transformed?”

Migrating to the cloud for data transformation

There are numerous benefits to a cloud migration, as they relate to the constituent-centric vision described above. The cloud enables:

• Data to intelligence: Cloud platforms offer advanced analytical technologies as fully managed services, so healthcare companies can free themselves of these data management challenges.
• Increased agility: Cloud data environments help healthcare companies respond to customer and market dynamics with agility and relevance. By accessing data in real time, healthcare companies can deliver the right message to the right customer, at the right time and on the right channel.
• Unlimited scale: The amount of data generated by all of the touchpoints a patient has with a healthcare company is substantial. Cloud environments provide the on-demand scale that healthcare companies need in order to manage multi-channel marketing efforts that enable one-to-one customer experiences.
• Robust security: Customer trust, credibility, and regulatory compliance are on the line when it comes to protecting data. It’s a major and constant undertaking to manage data on-premises especially as the security landscape keeps evolving. Established cloud environments ensure data is secured by best-in-class security, regulatory compliance, and data governance technology.
• More marketer control over data: Data access and sharing are much easier on the cloud. Healthcare marketers are empowered with more control of their own data, and they can access it securely to generate insights or activate campaigns.
• On-demand pricing: Pay-per-use models allow healthcare companies to retain control over cloud budgets by allowing the companies to only paying for what is consumed. These pricing models also help marketers to pilot new initiatives without breaking the bank and then scale, if successful.

The next step in the cloud journey

The cloud has become a core component in realizing the data capabilities to deliver better customer experiences in healthcare. Getting there is a journey, which can be filled with quick wins, successes, and smaller transformations along the way.

Want to learn more? For a deeper dive into the strategy, approach, and benefits of migrating to the cloud, read our report, Migrating Your Marketing Data to the Cloud. With the right approach, better healthcare customer experiences are right there on the horizon.