I worked at a few mental health inpatient and outpatient clinics. The one I spent the most time with was Wasatch Behavioral Health. Here, I worked alongside case managers and therapists in a program designed to help elementary school-age kids.
Talking about what a mental health clinic might use a relational database or CRM for: For them, a CRM would be incredibly useful in relating therapists with their clients, relating clients with their parent records if they are a minor, relating patient records with the program they are in alongside their program manager/case manager, associating them with any DCFS case managers they might be associated with, logging clinical notes, process management tools for client intake, appointment scheduling, and other processes. On top of all of this, there is a lot of sensitive PHI alongside Social Security information, so whatever software they are using, it will need to be HIPAA compliant. This not only goes for the CRM, but also for any surrounding applications they are using like webforms.
I built all this out in a demo system like a year and half ago, so I won’t be able to show anything off, but we can talk a little bit about how things were organized and what was constructed, or at least, what was planned out. I built this system in Zoho, so I had access to a lot more tools in the demo system than HubSpot had in its free version. I am sure that all of this could have been built in HubSpot, I just would have had to go into debt to build it.
Record relation: Primary therapist, parent, WBH case manager, DCFS case manager (if applicable)
Layout rules: If they are a minor, we are not going to be showing phone number or email, because that is something that 6 year-olds rarely have. However, if the contact type is a parent, we are not only going to show contact info, but require it to ensure that we will always have it on record
Process management
Email automation
Appointment booking
This was built without knowing a ton about CRMs. Obviously, I had take introductory courses and familiarized myself with the necessary tools, but the thing that was the most valuable was having an understanding of the business I was designing a system for so that I had a grasp on what was going to make people’s jobs easier, what was going to improve communication between case managers, and, for therapists, what was going to improve the client experience by making the intake and appointment scheduling process more streamlined.
Keep in mind, going forward, that approaching problems from a process-oriented perspective and really understanding the organization you are building a system for is the most important thing. Ask lots of questions, map everything out, confirm your understanding with your client, talk to as many people within that organization as you can to get their insight on how the system can be improved.
