The Future of Home Care with Salesforce Field Service
Home health care is making a reappearance as doctors are reinstating the practice of making house calls due to the increased need for heightened medical safety due to the Covid-19 pandemic. People of all ages and abilities, including those with positive vaccination statuses, are at risk of contracting Covid-19 in their day to day activities. With that in mind, many consider medical facilities to be far more dangerous than local gyms and shops due to a perceived higher likelihood of transmission as these facilities tend to be sites of treatment for Covid-19 positive patients.
Home health care has made a powerful resurgence, and for MedTech and Healthcare organizations navigating this shift, Salesforce Field Service management software is emerging as one of the most impactful tools for delivering safe, efficient, and patient-centered home care at scale. As the practice of making house calls returns to the forefront of medical care, field service management solutions purpose-built for healthcare field service operations are becoming essential infrastructure, not optional technology.
Patients Are Not Seeking Medical Care Like They Used To
Still, for many at-risk people, the chance of contracting Covid-19 outweighs the benefits of seeking necessary medical attention, often changing their typical response to a medical requirement or emergency.
“According to a recent Kaufman Hall survey, 54% of consumers cited fear of contracting Covid-19 as a primary reason to delay care,” highlighting the mentality change of the population (Forbes).
This fundamental change in patient behavior that has reshaped how companies in healthcare must think about field service scheduling, care delivery, and patient access.
Unlike pre-covid, people prefer to wait for a medical complication to pass rather than seeking medical help when symptoms initially arise to avoid going into crowded offices or hospitals. Due to this change in behavior, there has been an increase in the amount of patients who are requiring a higher level of care by the time they do engage, which decreases the total industry spend for in-office experiences, hospital visits and medications requested.
Furthermore, the pandemic has forced healthcare professionals to adjust their usual follow-up care recommendations and consider the capabilities of at-home care options.
“According to a recent William Blair survey, 81% of physicians responsible for discharge planning now prefer to refer their patients to a home health agency versus a skilled nursing facility, a figure that is up from 54% before the pandemic,” showing that physicians are aware of the new patient preference towards in home rather than in office care (Forbes).
This pivot by referring physicians, highlights the patient centric approach that is changing the way that medical treatment is provided—if it can be safely performed in the comfort of one’s own home, then home care will be recommended before in-office treatment. This shift toward patient-centric, in-home care delivery is not temporary. It is redefining what field service support in healthcare must look like going forward.
Home Care Post-Pandemic: A Growing and Permanent Field Service Opportunity
While Covid-19 brought to light the growing need for at-home care due to fears of disease contraction from being in the general public, it also brought popularity to others who are requiring home care medical services—the country’s aging population. Statistically, “one out of every four home health patients is over the age of 85... according to the 2020 Home Health Chartbook” and that number is steadily growing (Home Health Care News).
With the forecasted increase in population over the age of 85 in the coming years, “the U.S. home care market is expected to grow from $100B in 2016 to $225B by 2024” showing a direct correlation of the primary users of home care being those over 85 and the industry income they generate (Forbes).
Beyond data highlighting the aging generations as the primary users of home care services, what separates the elderly population from the general population in terms of home care is their likelihood of being repeat patients due to age related long-term care necessities.
Compared to the general public, the country’s aging population is more susceptible to diseases such as Covid-19 and more likely to require long-term, pre-emptive, and/or follow-up care relating to underlying conditions and/or accelerated age. Elderly patients are more dependent on mobile field service capabilities because, for many, physically traveling to an outpatient facility is simply not possible.
How Salesforce Field Service Management Software Can Transform Home Health Care
For elderly and at-risk patients who cannot easily access in-office care, Salesforce Field Service management solutions make all the difference, enabling medical teams to schedule home visits, dispatch the right practitioners, and deliver the medical care that patients would otherwise be unable to receive.
According to Home Health Care News,“Home health users are...more likely to live alone and have two or more functional limitations” meaning that unless these patients can independently get to an in-office appointment or find round trip transportation, they will have no choice but to forgo any office based required medical assistance. For MedTech and Healthcare organizations, this is both a care imperative and a significant field service market opportunity.
Automated Field Service Scheduling Matched to Patient Needs
Salesforce Field Service helps to improve a practice’s overall efficiency by automating a team’s home-care scheduling and on-site service capabilities, all while ensuring that every patient is matched with the practitioner best equipped to address their specific medical needs.
With Salesforce Field Service, patients can receive the best experience possible because this tool matches their medical needs with a practitioner who has the right skill sets to help. By automatically matching the practitioner with the patient case they are most equipped to handle, Salesforce Field Service scheduling software allows teams to create more time in the day so they are able to service more clients without compromising on the quality of each home visit.
This is intelligent field service optimization applied to healthcare: eliminating the manual field service workflow burden that consumes clinical staff time and replacing it with automated, skills-based matching that consistently delivers the right care, to the right patient, at the right time.
Continuity of Care Through the Salesforce Field Service Mobile App
For a long-term patient, the Salesforce Field Service Mobile App is a great way for practitioners to keep track of daily medications and routines so that regardless of which team member is providing care, patients will always get the care they deserve. This app also provides home care practitioners with the ability to update the patient’s information, daily treatments, and/or step-by-step daily requirements in Salesforce so that teams are up to date on any changes that may have occurred, keeping the entire team aligned and every patient record accurate and accessible within the Salesforce Field Service cloud.
This is field service data capture at its most meaningful: not just operational data, but clinical continuity that directly impacts patient safety and care quality.
Emergency Response and Proactive Field Service Scheduling
In the event of a patient emergency, Salesforce Field Service can automatically schedule an appointment, reschedule existing appointments, and even alert teams to the situation. This is field service automation software delivering the kind of rapid, coordinated response that can make a genuine difference in patient outcomes.
To enhance the patient experience even more, the Salesforce Field Service platform gives visibility to practitioners’ arrival times. By allowing patients to see where their caretakers are geographically located in real time, the anxiety of waiting will be diminished and there will be a decrease in the amount of calls the team gets regarding when practitioners will get to the site. This increases the positive experience for clients, freeing up call centers for more urgent matters, and saving on overall company spend!
Integration Matters: Finding the Right Salesforce Field Service Consultant
When implementing Salesforce Field Service management software to support home care field service operations, finding the right Salesforce Field Service consultant partner is critical to success. The right partner doesn't just configure the platform; they understand the unique complexity of healthcare field service management, the regulatory environment, the patient experience requirements, and the field service workflow nuances that make home care different from any other field service industry vertical.
That's where NeuraFlash comes in. As a team of certified Salesforce Field Service experts dedicated to creating exceptional experiences through thoughtful Salesforce Field Service implementation and optimization, NeuraFlash brings the field service industry knowledge, platform depth, and patient-centered approach needed to build field service management solutions that truly benefit the end user, keeping patients at the center of every interaction.
With over 300 active customers, and an average customer satisfaction score of 9.96, we believe in exceeding field service expectations.
Food for thought: “The U.S. home care market is expected to grow from $100B in 2016 to $225B by 2024,” says Forbes on the future of healthcare (Forbes). What are you doing to make the most of this opportunity?
Salesforce Field Service management software is one of the most powerful tools available for MedTech and Healthcare organizations looking to capture their share of that opportunity. What are you doing to make the most of it?
Contact NeuraFlash to learn how Salesforce Field Service can transform your home care field service operations — and deliver the exceptional patient experiences your community deserves.
Learn more about how NeuraFlash can help with:
🔗 AI integration for MedTech and Healthcare
🔗 NeuraFlash's Mobile Essentials | Salesforce Field Service Platform
