Innovex Keeps Critical Client Information Confidential, Streamlines Data Collection with Custom CRM

"It is easy to adapt Salesforce to particular projects. We can do it ourselves. We don't need an army of consultants every time we need to tailor the system or tweak it for a new customer. Our ability to customize the Salesforce application ourselves so quickly has already proved a major benefit to some of our customers."

Overview
Challenge
  • Centralize and standardize reporting by contract nurse teams
Solution
  • Innovex created a secure, on-demand nurse-tracking system within Salesforce
Results
  • Nursing teams can spend more time completing projects for their customers and less on reporting tasks
  • Centralized data capture has simplified reporting to customers and across projects
Full Story
Customization Helps Innovex Keep Tabs on Nurse Teams, Securely

 

One of the fastest-growing areas of business for Innovex is the provision of dedicated nurse teams. These healthcare professionals, whose work in primary and secondary care is underwritten by the pharmaceutical industry, are assigned to busy medical practices and clinics where they assist with clinical audits and patient reviews. Each nurse is required to file a daily report so that time utilization and activities can be tracked and reported against.

"Historically, these activities have been collected via Lotus Notes, but the ever-increasing complexity of reporting required meant the solution was not able to deliver the flexibility we required," Bate says.

While the nursing reports contain no data about individual patients, they must provide an accurate picture of what the nurses have done while on assignment so that Innovex can bill its clients for the services and demonstrate return on investment.

"Data collection has always been a challenge for us because our nursing programs are very confidential in nature, for both our customers in the pharmaceutical industry and the physicians with whom we work," Bate says. "For our physician customers we need to instill confidence that no patient-identifiable information is being collected. At the same time, this is a highly competitive environment and each of our pharmaceutical industry clients needs assurance that our other clients—t heir competitors—won't have access to their data."

Using Salesforce's built-in point-and-click customization tool, Force.com Builder, Bate and his team completed the customization without needing to call on the company's IT department for help. To create a centralized reporting system that allows nurses to more easily and securely record their activities, the team customized Salesforce and set up security controls to limit access. Because the new object shares the same security model as the rest of Salesforce, the company can be sure that the system's users see only the data they need to see.

When members of the nursing staff log in to Salesforce, they now see customized sections that prompt them to enter relevant data—such as clinic information, referral totals, and other details—i n a logical order. This has significantly simplified and condensed the reporting process for users, so they can spend their time more productively on nursing activities.

 
Extending CRM to Meet Business Needs

 

"In this case, the key business driver for us was to centralize the collection of activity for the nurse programs away from disparate systems," said Bate. "Salesforce and Force.com Builder have enabled us to do that in a way that fits our business model."

Bate and his team are introducing the customized solution in stages, with a plan to incorporate as many as 170 nurses on 10 different teams.

And the company's custom approach to CRM isn't likely to stop there. Innovex knows it can easily customize and extend its flexible Salesforce solution to cure any remaining headaches—and address those that will undoubtedly pop up when the company least expects it.

 
Innovex, a business unit of Quintiles Transnational, is the leading provider of contract sales forces, nurse adviser services, and clinical resource solutions to the pharmaceutical industry in the United Kingdom. Established in the UK more than 25 years ago, Innovex now has offices in countries across the world and global headquarters in the United States.



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