Love It or Leave It – Your Physician Relationship Manager

The love/hate relationship with your PRM

As a former physician liaison, and now a regional manager working with liaisons across the country, I can attest: the most important thing we can do to prove our value as liaisons also happens to be the number one thing we like to do the least!

I have never met a liaison who enjoys documenting their calls into a physician relationship management system (PRM). After all, we love our jobs because of the relationships we build and the results we deliver. We would much rather “leave” the logging of data out of it altogether.
Early in my career, I questioned why documentation was so important. It always seemed time-consuming, cumbersome and inefficient. I wondered who was paying attention to it anyway.

As a manager, I absolutely see why an effective data and activity tracking system is mission critical to keeping leadership informed and strategic growth initiatives on track. The right system will help you save time and prove value if it can easily tell me:

• Which providers and staff have received information on service line initiatives, and a timeline showing when and how they received it.
• How many providers my liaison outreach team is meeting with face-to-face, and with what frequency.
• The issues that create barriers that keep providers – whether employed, aligned, independent or competitive – from doing business with our hospital/system. If we can track and trend issues for leadership in numbers, we are more likely to have the support and resources needed for resolution.
• Opportunities that liaisons uncover in the field, whether for physician employment, electronic connectivity, or requests to meet with referral sources.

Based on my experience as a liaison working with various PRM systems over the years, it’s clear that liaisons will not embrace a system unless it is easy and fast to use. Liaisons want a system that is:

• Web-based, with real-time data they can access while on the road on any device at any time.
• Customizable with quick drop down menus to reduce the need for typing and ensure conformity across multiple users.
• Capable of escalating issues for resolution — and opportunities for enhancements — so colleagues and leadership can efficiently resolve problems and support your efforts in the field.
• Data-driven, categorizing issues to track and trend for leadership decisions based on real numbers versus simply anecdotal conversations.

Liaisons will use a PRM that is quick and easy, and leaders will pay attention to reports filled with relevant and timely data.

The trackerPLUS Difference

This past year I have worked with a multi-hospital system with multiple outreach liaisons and key service lines using trackerPLUS, which is now being rolled out nationwide.

Liaisons spend minimal time logging encounters. Instead, they have more time in the field and greater strategic focus based on real-time reports summarize service line initiatives, barriers to business, competitive intelligence and opportunities for growth on multiple levels across the system, by hospital, initiative provider or liaison.

The pay-off has been dramatic year-to-year growth among their targeted providers in the areas of inpatient admissions, observations, outpatient surgeries, outpatient procedures and outpatient registrations. That translates to measurable value they can show to leadership.

Learn more about trackerPLUS, sign-up for a demonstration – with no strings attached – and see how easy it is to use.