Durdans Hospital

Founded in 1945, Durdans Hospital has a rich heritage of delivering healthcare. Presently owned by Ceylon Hospitals PLC, the organization operates a network of laboratories and medical centers across Sri Lanka, on top of the main hospital. When Rakshitha Tudawe joined Durdans Hospital in 2016, he brought with him a drive to innovate, digitize, and decentralize the healthcare system. 

Inefficiencies with legacy manual processes

Back then, the hospital’s customer care department relied on manual processes. “The number of complaints was increasing, and many were left unresolved,” says Tudawe, now the Executive Director of Durdans Hospital. “The manual handling, logging, and monitoring was the root cause of inefficiency. There was no systematic flow in managing complaints. Everything was simply noted down in a book and some complaints were not even addressed.”

The sales department experienced similar inefficiencies. Each day, the sales team used Microsoft Excel to manually create packages for every lead they received. This method did not allow them to see individual cost elements of services when setting prices. The contribution margin was typically overlooked. Proposal approvals were also manual, with signatures of responsible individuals from the finance team obtained on a paper printout. 

With a growing number of patients each year, Durdans Hospital realized that having a loyalty program would be beneficial for both the hospital and its patients. “We can help people better if we know their history and understand their needs,” says Tudawe. “Working with loyal patients is the most mutually valuable exchange. A good loyalty program would encourage our patients to come back to us for their medical needs. It would help patient retention and improve healthcare outcomes.” 

In line with these insights, the hospital’s top management team created a roadmap called ‘Vision 2022’. The plan spans five years and has many components, three of which are management of patient complaints, generation of packages for corporate clients, and fostering patient loyalty. Understanding that these processes require a digital solution, Durdans Hospital started evaluating potential third-party providers. And through its Head of IT, Durdans Hospital was introduced to Microsoft Gold Certified Partner ZILLIONe. “When Durdans Hospital told us that it had been looking at a CRM solution from another third-party for some time, we suggested why not look at what Microsoft Dynamics can do.” reveals Enrico Lisk, Director of Digital Transformation, ZILLIONe. The ZILLIONe team recommended Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service modules to the hospital.

Move to efficient data management and automation

Not long after the successful implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365, the hospital started to see improvements in its patient-care processes and patient experience. The new digital tools enabled staff to manage patient complaints easier via automation. The sales process became more transparent, especially in the creation of corporate packages. 

Complaint management became more than a simple logging of complaints. “We developed this module to have a level of priority to the complaint,” Tudawe explains. “When a complaint gets logged, it is directed to the specific department, whether it’s medical services, lab engineering, housekeeping, and even marketing. If the complaint is not attended within a certain time, the issue gets escalated to higher management. We can see how many complaints have not been closed, by department. We achieved accountability in our healthcare, from the first staff member receiving the complaint, all the way to heads of department.”

This higher level of accountability brought tangible results. “We have seen the number of patient complaints going down,” says Tudawe. “I truly believe that if any hospital adopts this, it can monitor and mitigate complaints more effectively.”

Durdans Hospital now plans to embed the existing complaint management system on top of its Private Branch Exchange (PBX) system, which is its call center. “When a patient calls, the system will fetch relevant information instead of the entire patient profile. This way, the customer care executive will be aware of the services the patient received before and anticipate their needs.”

Increasing transparency in costs 

Results were not limited to patient satisfaction. With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, the hospital was able to optimize its sales process and increase transparency in costing. This led to an increase in the number of corporate clients. “The system we created using the Dynamics 365 Sales has helped us monitor the contribution margins of each package,” declares Tudawe. “When my sales team creates a package, they can see the contribution margin percentage, which eliminates guesswork. They can also immediately gather required approvals, so the process is faster.” Proposals are now sent to responsible people using automation and digital sign-offs, rather than having to gather physical signatures on paper.

Integrated into their CRM, the new sales system also offers Durdans Hospital executives’ transparency across the entire sales journey. The company now has access to important information such as number of clients approached, number of leads converted, how many new packages are sold, and how many packages came back for renewal. This information enables the sales team to forecast next year’s revenue and prepare strategic plans.

Rewarding loyal customers

Aside from gaining new customers, Durdans Hospital worked on retaining existing ones through a new a loyalty program. The task isn’t as simple as it sounds. “We can’t ask patients to look at the various categories and upsell them, nor can we ask them to go through a surgery to earn more points,” explains Lisk. “We had to turn around the loyalty program and bring empathy in the whole situation.” The ZILLIONe team created a loyalty program that supports family memberships and ensured that members maximize the value out of the program. Returning patients were rewarded with higher discounts, which can be applied to future healthcare needs. 

The CRM system served as the backbone for Durdans Hospital’s new loyalty program. “I am really proud of the way we implemented the loyalty module. We did it completely on the Microsoft Power Automate platform with zero coding, which is a huge thing,” says Lisk. 

The well-designed loyalty program is producing results. “We have seen an increase in the loyalty of our patients, who are now visiting us whenever they need medical assistance and can use their discounts,” shares Tudawe.

Using data to enhance the patient journey 

For Durdans Hospital, analytics is the cornerstone in clearly understanding the needs of every patient. “Analytics are useful to derive patient data and help us identify what services a patient has used and what complementary services we could further offer,” Tudawe explains. “This helped ensure that the promotions we send to a patient are relevant to their medical needs.”

With data-driven insights, Durdans Hospital is making every interaction with patients more relevant and proactive. The marketing team uses profiling and past behavior to anticipate patient needs, resulting in a more patient-centric approach that results in greater patient loyalty. 

The driving force behind all these transformations has always been understanding and satisfying the patients. “Empathy is very important when treating patients,” observes Tudawe. “Today, an inability to manage complaints or failing to proactively address the needs of a patient most likely results in them seeking services elsewhere or forgetting to take care of themselves. Patient experience is everything and we want to deliver it in the highest quality possible.”