I kneed this Opportunity

[A patient’s view of Health Care]

About 8 years ago my right knee was giving me trouble, X-rays and CT scans indicated significant damage. I was a potential LEAD for an orthopedic surgeon. Unfortunately, I failed the lead qualifying process because I walked (not hobbled) into the surgeon’s office and was too young for a knee replacement (the prosthetics only last 25-30 years).

Fast forward 7 years and the knee is getting worse, (I can hobble now) and the 25-30 years prosthetic lifetime matches my expected lifetime. I’m closer to the LEAD qualification this time but there’s one more criterion – cost. It’s about $30k ($AUD) total cost. My private health insurance only covers knee reconstruction not knee replacement (watch the fine print for ENTITLEMENTS). So I updated the CONTRACT and increased the policy cover for knee replacement but there’s a 12-month waiting period. After 8 months I went back to see the surgeon, determined to pass this lead qualification stage. All is good, my LEAD is converted and I’ve now got an ACCOUNT (surgeon), a CONTACT (me), and an OPPORTUNITY (surgery).

It’s only at the very first opportunity stage as the waiting period is not complete yet but the surgeon SUBMITS IT FOR APPROVAL and my health fund says ok for a September surgery date.

Now the ACTIVITIES and OPPORTUNITY TEAMS go into full swing! A healthy eating weight loss program and physio program both funded by the health insurance are scheduled. The nurse practitioner acts as OPPORTUNITY OWNER, organizing the CUSTOMER SUCCESS TEAM. She schedules all the ancillary blood tests, CT scans, physio appointments, hospital orientation, hospital pre-admission paperwork, medical aids, drugs, and heart stress tests (closed-lost is not a desirable outcome!). A nurse from the health insurance company joins the team to make sure I’m fully informed about my ENTITLEMENTS, the surgery process, and any out-of-pocket expenses. Closer to surgery day the anesthetic doctor joins the team and asks a million more questions and by the way, he costs an extra $500 out of my pocket – but you can sign his CONTRACT with DocuSign and pay the INVOICE online. A medical specialist joins the team and his job is to review all the tests and scans before we get approval to move to the READY stage. In the six weeks before surgery, I’m in regular contact with my physiotherapist doing my pre-op exercises, he’s monitoring me via the supplied Fitbit watch and iPad that contains the exercise program videos and is used for FaceTime consultations.

Surgery day arrives and the hospital professionals join the team. A quick hello, a prick in the arm, a glimpse of the surgeon and it’s off into the CLOUDS for me. 

After some complex background processes occur, the OPPORTUNITY is CLOSED-WON. Phew – they obviously had some good fault paths and rollbacks in place as I woke up to the news that all went well!

Now the SERVICE team has taken over, and the nurses, hospital doctors, and physios work hard to get me mobile enough for discharge in 3-5 days.

I’ve got this IoT device next to my leg that runs a SCHEDULE-TRIGGERED FLOW to deliver base-level pain medication every six hours. I have a handheld device that I can use to trigger a PLATFORM EVENT TRIGGERED FLOW that creates a CASE and sends a NOTIFICATION (bell) to the nurse’s station. Sometimes these cases require ESCALATION to a more senior team member, especially for dispensing the stronger drugs.

I have an analog DASHBOARD fixed to the wall that monitors my daily progress and KPIs. Analog medical (paper) records are still in use here to record all my vital signs.

The main KPI I’m interested in is the discharge date when I get to go home. All going well that is Friday, 4 days after I was admitted.

But that’s not the end, we have an SLA to meet with my physio to ensure this new prosthetic delivers real lasting value.

PS: The Parent Account (wife), coached, supported, mentored, scolded, and generally kept me on track. I’m truly grateful to her for this and will happily share the COMMISSION on this deal. 

So if for a moment you think that your Sales or Service Cloud implementation is complex, spare a thought for those tackling a Health Cloud implementation!

Health Cloud was not used in this environment but I’ve tried to indicate how complex this procedure is and how it could benefit from automation.

Now it’s time for my afternoon physio and then a bit of a snooze.