Salesforce enhances cloud-based health care offering

Salesforce has expanded Health Cloud, its cloud-based service for health care organizations, with several new features targeting remote patient management and data protection.

The company has added four enhancements to Health Cloud. The first addition, remote patient exception monitoring, harvests data from connected health care devices and presents it in a single dashboard interface targeting care coordinators.

Metrics displayable in the dashboard include heart rate and blood glucose levels. This will enable health care workers to better understand patient conditions without needing physical visits, Salesforce said.

Salesforce's new appointment management feature suggests remote and in-person appointment times for patients. Users can select available appointment types and times via any device, and the system can also offer pre-appointment questionnaires to help gather the necessary data ahead of the appointment.

The cloud service provider says this will reduce no-shows and administrative costs incurred through manual back and forth with human schedulers.

The third new feature, medication management, tackles the management of medication lists. Many clinics still use manual, paper-based systems to track patient medication, making it difficult to monitor medication adherence, Salesforce said.

Targeting pharmacies, small clinics, and retail outlets, medication management will reduce the administrative overhead of tracking patient medication lists. The service will also integrate with RXNorm, a system that standardizes naming conventions for generic and brand name drugs in the US.

The final enhancement focuses on regulatory compliance and helps in-home patient care companies protect patients' health information. Salesforce is certifying Salesforce Maps, B2C Commerce, and Order Management services as compliant with the US government's HIPAA health care privacy regulations.

This certification gives mobile health care workers access to sensitive patient data on the move via Salesforce Maps while staying compliant with regulations, the company said. It also enables companies, including retail health locations and pharmacies, to set up e-commerce stores dealing with sensitive patient orders via HIPAA support in Salesforce B2C Commerce and Salesforce Order Management.