Healthcare: Transforming Patient Experience with Salesforce
The New Imperative: Digital Patient Experience
Healthcare is moving beyond clinical excellence to focus on patient experience as a key differentiator. Modern patients expect the same digital convenience from hospitals that they get in retail or banking. In fact, 60% of healthcare consumers expect their digital experience to mirror retail. This means healthcare providers must engage patients proactively across their entire journey – from scheduling and telehealth to follow-ups and wellness outreach. Salesforce has emerged as a leader in this transformation, offering a suite of cloud solutions tailored to healthcare. Before diving into Salesforce’s capabilities, it’s important to see how it stacks up against other industry titans and understand the broader trends driving digital patient engagement.
Industry Insights: Trends in Digital Patient Engagement
It’s not just vendors pushing this shift; research shows patient experience transformation is a top priority across healthcare:
According to McKinsey’s latest consumer healthcare survey, 61% of healthcare consumers prefer using digital tools for engagement, a number that jumped 16% since 2016
[mckinsey.com]. Moreover, 60% of surveyed patients were more satisfied with their last telehealth visit than with in-person care [mckinsey.com]. This underscores that digital engagement isn’t just convenient – it can actually improve perceived care quality.
A Gartner-affiliated CIO survey found 68% of healthcare payers cited improving consumer engagement as their top goal [hexaware.com]. Health systems similarly report that virtual health and “digital front door” initiatives (online portals, self-scheduling, etc.) are where ~70% expect the highest impact on outcomes [mckinsey.com]. Investment is following suit: the US healthcare CRM market, for instance, reached $12 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow to nearly $29 billion by 2033
[precedenceresearch.com], reflecting a CAGR above 10%.
Forrester’s analysis of healthcare CRM vendors reinforces the trend toward personalization at scale. Salesforce and Pegasystems were identified as Leaders, with an emphasis on 360-degree patient views, predictive analytics, and deep individualization rather than one-size-fits-all messaging [forrester.com]. In practice, this means providers are using CRM data to segment patients and deliver the next best action (e.g. an appointment reminder or care gap alert) proactively, not just reactively.
In sum, healthcare organizations recognize that engaging patients via digital channels improves outcomes and loyalty. The rise of value-based care and competition (including from retail health disruptors) is pressuring providers to treat patients more like customers – and invest in the technology to do so. Salesforce’s platform is aligned with these trends, offering tools to meet patients where they are digitally and tailor each interaction.
How Salesforce Elevates Patient Experience (Health Cloud, Experience Cloud, Marketing Cloud)
Salesforce’s Healthcare suite addresses patient experience holistically, from care coordination to digital marketing. Salesforce Health Cloud is the centerpiece – a healthcare-specific CRM platform that aggregates patient data and interactions in one place. Salesforce Experience Cloud extends those capabilities to external audiences via patient and partner portals, while Salesforce Marketing Cloud drives personalized outreach at scale. Here’s how each component optimizes workflows and personalizes the patient journey:
Salesforce Health Cloud – 360° Patient Management: Health Cloud serves as a “single source of truth” for patient information, bringing together clinical and non-clinical data into comprehensive profiles. Think of a unified patient timeline that combines EHR data, social determinants, appointments, and communication history. Every provider and staff member can access this to understand the patient’s needs. With this foundation, Health Cloud enables personalized care plans and automates routine tasks. Care coordinators can create tailored care pathways for chronic disease patients, set up reminders, and trigger follow-ups all within the system. A key differentiator is its flexibility – it’s not an EHR itself but integrates with EHRs like Epic or Cerner, bridging the gap between clinical records and customer relationship management. As Forrester noted, Health Cloud “brings together clinical and non-clinical data... to create a comprehensive view of each patient’s interactions and health status,” and even includes pre-built analytics (Einstein AI) to proactively identify needs beckershospitalreview.com. In practice: a care manager could instantly see that a patient missed their last mammogram and, through Health Cloud, trigger a personalized outreach (via Marketing Cloud) to get them scheduled. This kind of workflow improvement keeps patients from falling through the cracks.
Salesforce Experience Cloud – Connected Patient Communities: Experience Cloud (formerly Community Cloud) allows healthcare organizations to create secure, branded portals for patients, families, or partners. Instead of a static patient portal limited to viewing records, Experience Cloud supports rich, interactive experiences. Salesforce has “expanded the concept of a healthcare portal from transactional to experiential”. For example, with a patient community site, patients can log in to schedule appointments, message their care team, complete intake forms, view educational resources, and even participate in support forums, all integrated with their Health Cloud data. One use case from a Salesforce partner showed how a medical group let employees complete daily health screening questionnaires via an Experience Cloud site, speeding up shift check-ins.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud – Personalized Outreach and Journeys: Marketing Cloud brings the power of automated, multi-channel communication to healthcare. Traditionally, hospitals did minimal “marketing” to patients beyond generic reminders. Now, with Marketing Cloud, providers can run targeted campaigns for preventative care, send tailored wellness content, and guide patients along care journeys just like retailers nurture customers. Crucially, Marketing Cloud ties into Health Cloud data (via Marketing Cloud Engagement for Health Cloud) so outreach is based on real patient status and preferences [help.salesforce.com]. In short: Marketing Cloud treats every patient like a segment-of-one, ensuring they receive timely, useful communications (e.g. appointment reminders, post-discharge check-ins, condition-specific education), which improves patient retention and adherence.
By combining these clouds, Salesforce enables what Gartner calls a “digital front door” strategy – one where patients have a seamless, personalized experience across all touchpoints. For instance, a patient’s journey might begin with seeing an online ad or community event (Marketing Cloud targeting), visiting a personalized microsite to sign up (Experience Cloud), then being entered into Health Cloud as a lead or patient. From there, the care team engages them via Health Cloud and tracks all interactions, Marketing Cloud continues to send education and satisfaction surveys, and the patient uses the Experience site for ongoing needs. The end result is a connected ecosystem that feels cohesive to the patient and provides 360° visibility to the provider.
Conclusion: Engage Patients Like Never Before
The era of passive patients and disconnected care is ending. In its place is a model where healthcare organizations actively engage and guide patients to better health outcomes – and Salesforce is at the forefront of this change. By integrating CRM capabilities with healthcare workflows, Salesforce allows providers to treat patients not as chart numbers, but as valued customers with personalized needs. Whether it’s reducing no-shows through tailored reminders or improving care plan adherence with collaborative portals, the transformation in patient experience is tangible and data-backed.
For healthcare executives, the message is clear: investing in patient-centric technology is no longer optional – it’s mission-critical for staying competitive and delivering value-based care. Salesforce’s platform offers a proven path to unify your teams, delight your patients, and operate more efficiently in the process.
Ready to transform your healthcare organization’s patient experience? contact us to schedule a demo or consultation.
