By Tony Tomkys, Vice President of UK and Ireland at BridgeHead Software
BridgeHead Software was recently recognised by analyst firm Frost & Sullivan with its 2016 European Customer Value Leadership Award for Healthcare Content Management for demonstrating high levels of customer engagement, satisfaction and loyalty, as well as growth.
Time and again, we see the healthcare organisations we work with achieving great results with our help, which has been supported by independent third party recognition and endorsement. “BridgeHead is a great company to do business with.” As VP of the UK and Ireland, you might expect me to say that. But this is, in fact, something our customers regularly say to us and is reflected in our consistent customer retention rate – currently at 97%.
All this got me thinking. What is it that really sets BridgeHead Software apart?
After some reflection, I think I have the answer and that is our dedication to our customers. But, what does that actually mean? I think we can break it down to 4 key areas: focus, relationships, execution and inspiration.
Let’s look at focus. BridgeHead Software is 100% focused on the healthcare market and, as a result, we instinctively know the pressures, strategic aims and pain points felt by healthcare organisations. We passionately believe that data is is the lifeblood of a healthcare organisation and that data leads to information that, in turn, leads to knowledge that informs better clinical decisions and patient outcomes. Simply put, we listen to our customers and understand the challenges they face every day as they strive to be the best they can be when it comes to quality care delivery.
Customers are not just numbers or contracts to us – they are people with whom we develop strong interpersonal relationships. For instance, our longest serving customer has been with us for over 12 years and we have an expansive user base of more than 1,200 hospitals worldwide. But, it’s not just about retaining customers – it’s important to us that our customers are successful.
Take North Middlesex University Hospital (NMUH) in the UK as a case in point. Not long after awarding the contract to BridgeHead for its Independent Clinical Archive (ICA), also referred to as a third generation Vendor Neutral Archive or VNA 3.0, to manage its radiology images, the hospital decided to expand the use of its BridgeHead solution – HealthStore®. As part of its digital transformation plans, NMUH saw BridgeHead as a strategic partner and its ICA as a core component, acting as the central repository not solely for its medical images, but for data across the enterprise, starting with the paediatric records from its Fortus electronic data management system (EDMS).
Musadiq Subar, IT Programme Manager and Clinical Technical Architect at NMUH said during that project: “We spent many late nights working on the solution. Seeing the team at BridgeHead really getting their hands dirty and working with us to find the right solution was great – they would not offer a solution if they did not believe in it.”
Now NMUH is well on its way to achieving Jeremy Hunt’s, mandate that hospitals are digital by 2020. In fact, NMUH thinks it may achieve this early in 2016-17.
Great execution is about supporting customers right through the journey, from design to implementation to support. We are proud to be one of the very few vendors that can deliver end-to-end healthcare data management solutions and, as a result, we live and breathe the project from start to finish and long after.
Our project and technical support teams are known for going above and beyond the call of duty. I know of at least one case where the support engineer stepped in to help at a hospital site when it was forced to move its server room due to structural issues with the building.
The hospital had been let down by its other vendors who were fighting over whose responsibility it was to solve the problem. But, even though we had no obligation to do so, that didn’t stop one of our support engineers stepping in to help, even sleeping on a disaster recovery truck outside the hospital facility on a Saturday night to ensure healthcare operations continued with the minimal disruption and downtime.
Our fantastic customer support staff are based in the UK and USA and we have a robust partner network with fully trained specialists on our solutions – so, as well as having a broad knowledge of the health sector, we have experts local to each territory and understand the characteristics and unique challenges to those markets.
Access to our senior management is another key differentiator. While we offer tiered support levels, customers also have access to our executive management team, if and when required.
Finally, the success of our customers is also directly related to better healthcare delivery for patients – something we are very aware of. Patient care, and the small part we play in the ecosystem, is the inspiration that drives us as a company. We are privileged to work with healthcare organisations at the forefront of digital transformation in Europe, North America and further afield. Forward thinking healthcare organisations recognise that data is a strategic asset that underpins care delivery directly impacting the diagnosis, treatment and outcomes for patients.
It is this inspiration that continues to drive BridgeHead and its staff to deliver the best possible support and healthcare data management solutions for customers – to ensure they, and their patients, can benefit from what we regard to be an organisations most strategic asset – data.
