Technology company Salesforce has rolled out updates to its Health Cloud that advance its strategy of providing a front door to electronic health records.
The company, which launched its Health Cloud in 2015 as a "patient relationship management tool," added new tools that enable providers to reach patients where they are, company executives said.
The new tools, announced in conjunction with the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Global Conference this week in Las Vegas, include cloud-based remote patient monitoring to allow patients to use connected devices and technology to gather patient-generated health data and send it to healthcare professionals. Providers can then see the data within a single dashboard to better monitor patients' health conditions from home.
Care coordinators can access charts that show patients’ vital signs and other health metrics such as heart rate, blood glucose levels and weight to track patient health, company executives said.
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"For years, the healthcare system has struggled to catch up with the innovation we were seeing across other industries. But the pandemic forced us to accelerate digital transformation and provide the healthcare system with digital-first and always-on patient-focused solutions,” said Kevin Riley, senior vice president and general manager of healthcare and life sciences at Salesforce. “These new care from anywhere innovations ensure that we continue this digital transformation in healthcare and empower providers, payers, care coordinators and pharmaceutical companies to deliver care for patients wherever they are.”
The virtual care solutions also include patient self-scheduling tools that suggest the right appointment for the patient at the right time—whether at home or in the office—to help reduce no-shows, administrative costs and time spent on calls as well as medication management technology so pharmacists, technicians and other healthcare providers can view and manage details of all the medications a patient is currently taking or has taken in the past.
The Health Cloud updates also include HIPAA-compliant B2C commerce and order management for e-commerce stores and order fulfillment.
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When Salesforce rolled out its Health Cloud six years ago, it touted the technology as a patient relationship management tool that will pull information from different sources, including electronic medical records, medical devices and wearables, into the cloud to offer a "complete view" of patient health.
The new updates are in addition to the cloud platform's already available offerings to support access to care, scheduling and assessments, patient and member outreach, care coordination and patient services.
Last year, the technology company inked a multiyear partnership with major payer Humana to build a more connected, integrated experience for members.
Humana will deploy Salesforce’s Health Cloud platform as part of its new Enterprise Clinical Operating Model, which aims to boost care coordination between members, care teams and providers, the company said.
The company also launched its Vaccine Cloud during the pandemic to help organizations manage vaccinations at scale and teamed up with CVS Health to bring together their return-to-work platforms. The "strategic relationship" united Salesforce's Work.com workplace management platform, which allows for wellness monitoring and manual contract tracing, with CVS' Return Ready offering, which offers flexible tracking and insights on COVID-19 testing.