July 2022

There is a general consensus in higher education that institutions of nearly all types and sizes need to improve persistence and completion rates. While there have been slight improvements in recent years, data indicates that only half of the students complete degrees at the institution at which they start. Studies have suggested that many students complete their degrees at other institutions, taking completion to about 62%. Student departure remains a mystery for most educational leaders. They feel a compelling need to understand and fix the causes of attrition. There is no shortage of knowledge or reference on what works in student retention. Given all that, it is surprising that rates have only gradually improved. This could be for two reasons. First, institutions are flooded with data points and may not be able to identify the ones that must be tracked or which ones help would explain the persistence patterns of their students. Second, we may lack the connections between institutional supports and students who need them to see if we are truly doing something about it. Organize the Data Points with a Model Student success models can be helpful for educational leaders who wish to identify the key aspects associated with student success, persistence and completion. While there are many models to choose from, one of the most talked about is Tinto’s “Theory of Student Departure”. The model helps track the student lifecycle and identifies areas where both student and college attributes can impact the decision to stay in or leave an educational program. Tinto’s model, when analysed and condensed, suggests that there are five key areas where students may encounter challenges that disrupt their educational careers. Likewise, they may identify areas where students may have strengths that boost their success: Academic Integration Academic Integration in a college can be segmented into three parts: preparation, transition, and performance. These three can be connected sequentially, meaning lack of preparation can lead to a poor transition and weak ongoing performance, or they can occur in isolation, disconnected from one another. Experienced faculty and advisors probably know several cases where poorly prepared students were highly successful, well-prepared students failed, and those from both groups realized a trajectory in line with their levels of preparation. Social Integration Social Integration addresses the extent to which the student is able to connect with peers within the educational ecosystem. Adult learners often bond with other adults through common programs. The extent to which students have successfully bonded with their peers can be hard to read; it is not usually a one-size-fits-all model of social integration and student information systems are not typically built to collect and report the data that may be associated with this important area of student success. This aspect may also be useful when working on student faculty engagement.  This form of social integration in which students feel heard, seen and accepted by faculty is important especially for under-represented groups to feel a sense of belonging at their institution. Financial Support Financial Support is critical to enable a student to be able to afford education at that institution.. For those who complete annual aid applications, the resulting calculations serve as a proxy for the ability to pay. The data collected for this purpose does not include factors that can help a student afford costs such as support from family or those that can hamper affordability such as need of a student to work to support a elderly dependent household. We often have a different perception of need-based aid than how students view the issue: the amount of the education bill, less the aid is the amount to be paid or financed. More often than not, it is this bottomline number that impacts students’ real or perceived ability to remain in an educational program. It can also impact the value perception of the educational experience. Is this experience worth it’s price? Goal Clarity Goal Clarity indicates the degree to which a student recognises why they are enrolled in certain college, and the end goal of the program being pursued. Certain institutions might assume that a chosen program or subject translates to goal clarity but data often shows that students change subjects two to three times before getting a degree. A few of the factors that can determine whether a student may have clarity about program they have chosen are its requirements, their personal ability to meet required standards and their practical experience in that field. Faculty and advisors will spot a common situation of students feeling lost when they are unable to pursue a popular program. Support of Family and Friends One of the least investigated areas for measuring student persistence is the support of family. As the number of college students grows, the perception of the college experience amongst their friends and families may differ than those who come from families where college attendance is common. However, that does not mean all families don’t support of first-generation students across the board. In fact, many families place high value on college education. Having said that, there may not be an obvious relation between the program curriculum and career, time spent away from class, student services, and the potential of associated programs for providing key career skills. Create a Framework of Indicators for Lagging Using these five aspects of higher education as a model, it is possible to establish a data framework that measures what we know about students and their probability to continue and succeed. Lagging indicators are most commonly available data points that reflect things that have already occurred. These include grade point average (GPA), which don’t reveal student successes and struggles with certain concepts and skills. They also include the marks of courses finished in a term, unpaid fees that disallow registration for another term, abandonment of courses midway etc. While these data may support analysis of past activities, rarely do they provide understanding of current students. For insight that is “current”, institutions need data indicators that reveal outcomes in real time. Lagging indicator data is important. It allows the institution to conduct detailed, multi- parameter analysis to reveal student groups that may enter into high-risk situations. It may also aid in identifying remedies and support structures to support future students who may have the same characteristics. Too often, these analyses are univariate, such as GPA and one-year retention rate. Even while doing multivariate analyses, the data silos and not sufficient to form regression models with retention values high enough to explicitly establish the differences between students who continue and those who don’t. Human behaviour is complex and is driven by many factors. Consequently, analysis needs to be detailed and based on comprehensive data to allow analysts to investigate multiple factors to understand the patterns of their students. Leading indicators allow institutions to impact persistence in real time. Awareness of a student not connecting with faculty as expected, assignments, fellow students, lets the institution to intervene and attempt to resolve the issue before the student feels isolated to a degree that compels him/her to leave. Identifying students who have pending program fees within the term, which usually happens because loans applied on parent creditworthiness, have not been approved, allows the institution to intervene and find a solution. The institution can support in bridging the gap and mitigate the stress felt by the student before it becomes overwhelming. These are but a few examples of how leading indicators can be used to impact student persistence. Identify and Address Gaps There is typically more data available on lagging indicators than leading indicators, which implies that we have been more attuned to collecting and using data that reflect information on something that already occurred. It must be re-iterated that lagging indicators are help in analysing patterns and suggest interventions for future students. There is far less data available and used as leading indicators, however, and this implies an emerging area of practice that demands more attention. Analyses need to have robust and comprehensive data, yet those tend to exist in various systems/data silos. Institutions that have data warehouses are one step ahead; identifying the important data and extracting them from those systems may still be a challenge, even with solutions in place. Many other institutions that lack these data tools find themselves wishing for better insights and tools to help them collect, assemble and analyze their data. Certain areas suggest polls or surveys. While there are a number of solutions available today, these can also have limitations. One of these is the timing of offering a survey to new or current students, when receive the data back and place those into the hands of those who need it (especially advisors). Some of these instruments allow comparisons of student responses at your institution to others, which can be helpful, but that may be outweighed by the timing, where these data then become lagging, not leading, indicators. Short polls, such as those that ask students to rate how they are doing that day with facial emojis, may capture those who are feeling overwhelmed. Longer polls, that tease out the nuances of family and friend support, shouldn’t exceed 10 questions and five would likely increase response rates. Survey overload can be avoided by good planning and timely distribution of short polls and surveys. Connect the Dots (and the Data) Collecting, assembling, analyzing and acting upon a robust dataset is an evolutionary process. Institutions should start with what they have and gradually augment and enhance their data and its usage as part of a quality development process. Knowing what the desired state looks like is important to creating a strong road map toward it. Assembling a robust set of lagging indicators means getting data from multiple systems, modules and tables in to a unified dataset. Once aggregated, data analysis and visualization should reveal the interaction of the data categories within the framework. Human behavior is often complex and more often than not the decision to stay or leave a program is a mix of multiple factors originating from various parts of that experience. And there may be outside factors as well such as childcare, work pressure etc. External factors may be harder to capture through these data collection mechanisms and may not reveal the true picture. A proper assessment of the internal factors within the control of the institution will augment the analysis and sidestep simplistic, one dimensional solutions about why students are staying/leaving. Assembling and using a robust set of leading indicators is often a tremendous challenge at the most forward-thinking institutions. Is anyone following up to check if any student needs help on unpaid balances? Does the financial aid office, who may be equipped to discuss solutions, even know that this has occurred? Is financial stress causing the student to look for additional outside work, such that they have less time to read and complete assignments? Is the early alert system complicated to use by faculty?  Do residence hall advisors have a similar alerting mechanism for issues they might spot? Who is following up on these and what data do they have that will help them facilitate an empathetic and inform conversation with the student before they make a decision to leave? Adopting a case management methodology to understand student persistence and success has been used by institutions in first-year programs. Some of the more remarkable results have linked students to institutional resources, as well as community services and supports, in a “wrap-around” approach to student success. These approaches can only work when cases are surfaced and those empowered to act have sufficient information to meaningfully interact with the student. It requires that the information from disparate systems is brought together. Improving student outcomes also requires that the care teams and staff can see the relationship between suggesting services and resources and the student’s engagement or lack thereof. Higher education. student support has been based upon a “build it and they will come” approach, as well as an invitational approach to student referrals. Become a part of the Innovation eco-system Girikon is a certified Salesforce Consulting Partner with extensive Salesforce Consulting experience. Get access to experts who can help you adapt fast and achieve success. Contact us today. Questions? Our reps have answers. CONTACT OUR SALESFORCE CONSULTANTS

Pharmaceutical innovation from Health Cloud allows pharmaceutical companies to deliver personalised engagement and support experiences to patients and reduce operational costs while assisting patients navigate through their health journey. Health Cloud connects all patient centric data on a single platform and provides intelligent recommendations to enhance support programs to help you achieve targeted results for patients. Patients can be enrolled directly by a call center agent or by using forms on the patient portal. With Health Cloud, patient liaisons can see details about the program, such as products, services and overall goals. Once patients are enrolled, they can log in to view and authorise any necessary consent forms right from their mobile app. Patient liaisons can also interact directly with patients from a single console and offer services like adherence reminders, copay programs, benefits investigation or in home support. With Health Cloud, patients are kept informed and are supported throughout their entire journey with automated text messages and emails on progress updates. Patients and liaisons can access important resources through secure portals and mobile apps. Access to Therapy A new diagnosis often leaves patients overwhelmed. Patients want to have answers to questions like -How do I get started on treatment? Is the treatment affordable? How does the pandemic affect my access to therapy? Who do I approach for guidance? Onboard quickly, engage, and scale. Getting patients on therapy fast is critical to establishing engagement. That’s where a smooth and convenient onboarding process comes in. Guided enrollment allows service teams to provide critical resources, including insurance verification and copay coordination effortlessly. It is equally critical to create an easy-to-use patient portal for maintaining a 24/7 contact with patients. This allows engagement on any device so patients can get what they need — from relevant educational material to adherence reminders. With the Connect the Patient Experience solution from Health Cloud, you can scale patient service programs and reduce costs. Financial Support Many patients are anxious about the affordability of their therapy. The affordability concern ma also arise midway through the treatment. Withour proper guidance and help, they are at risk of abandoning treatment prematurely. Educate, support, and coordinate. With Health Cloud, pharmaceutical patient support teams can access funding sources for those in need quickly. The Connect the Patient Experience solution enables that by providing a 360-degree view of patients along with financial assistance options for specific therapies. It also suggests key information that can be shared with patients to help reinforce the benefits of staying on course of treatment, even in tough times. This allows patients to maintain the care they deserve for as long as is necessary. Therapy Adherence In today’s pandemic reality, it has become more difficult than ever for patients to adhere to their treatment plans, often a challenge task in normal times. The time is now right for organizations to partner with patients so that they can get the best possible outcomes. Analyze, identify, and check in. Analytics are key to revealing insights that can empower pharmaceutical companies to identify patients who are struggling to stay on the therapeutic course. Predictive insights can help reveal patients who are at risk of deviating from the prescribed path or simply stop treatment. With Connect the Patient Experience solution from health Cloud, pharmaceutical companies can receive proactive AI-driven recommendations for next best actions, like reminders or creating learning journeys. This will enable organizations to help patients course correct by providing highly personalized and compliant experiences. How can Pharma Companies Drive Engagement from Diagnosis through Adherence with Health Cloud? In today’s pandemic context, pharmaceutical innovators are moving faster than ever to engage patients with personalized insights and recommendations. Their goal is to get to the best possible outcome by making it easier to start and stay on course of  treatments, no matter what the situation is. Here’s how pharmaceutical companies can create a patient-centric experience that reduces operational costs, is compliant, and scales by therapeutic scope. Accelerate R&D Innovation Transform therapy development with a 360-degree view of trials. Reduce time to market by integrating teams and systems on a unified, secure platform and access real-time data on any device. Boost patient recruitment and retention with personalized communication. The Salesforce accelerate R&D Innovation solution from Health Cloud lets life science companies connect with trials teams to finding new ways to innovate faster. Lightning allows easy configuration of the apps you need, enabling teams to collaborate during every phase of clinical development such as study design, study start up, site selection and execution. Teams have easy access to study documents and can share with staff and investigators and then store their findings on the Salesforce platform using partner apps from the AppExchange or third-party apps pulled from API libraries in integration cloud. Clinical research associates and other field personnel can stay connected 24/7 across any device. Analytics show each team member a complete view of all their activities and they can view real time status updates on study start up and subject enrolment to get data insights and determine next best actions. Clinical data is pulled into Health Cloud and shown in a streamlined patient management console letting you manage patient trials while collaborating across the trial teams. This allows subjects to have the necessary support to successfully participate. Salesforce community cloud lets you connect stakeholders to important documents and resources, quickly recruit patients and collaborate with patients and investigators within a secure authenticated portal. Marketing Cloud lets you send personalised email and text messages to keep everyone informed and up to date. Connect Patient Experience Deliver tailored support programs at scale, deliver personalized patient experiences, and track and monitor performance with built-in analytics and AI. The Salesforce Connect the patient experience solution from Health Cloud lets pharmaceutical companies deliver personalised engagement and support programs across a single platform. To reduce operational costs and help patients manage their disease while navigating their healthcare needs.  You can connect all your data on a single platform to drove predictive recommendations and improve support programs to achieve targeted patient outcomes. Deliver programs at scale to drive awareness with patients and physicians using Salesforce Health Cloud and enrol patients directly through a call centre agent or using forms on the patient portal. And Patients can stay informed and supported through their entire journey using automated email and text messages through a secured and authenticated portal directly on their mobile. All while letting pharmaceutical companies have a complete view of their patients on a connected intelligent platform

Deliver rapid business outcomes with purpose-driven commercialization solutions. Transform Virtual Sales Provide a connected selling experience, from planning to support, on a unified platform to fast-track value and drive quicker business results. Take engagement to the next level and close more business with AI-driven actionable insights. The MedTech industry has always been on the cusp of innovative technology for healthcare, with the usage of robotics, nanotech, and AI to build life-saving devices. Today, more than ever, MedTech organizations are under tremendous pressure to discover innovative ways to connect and advise everyone they serve faster and more efficiently – and through multiple channels during the age of COVID-19.The pandemic fortified existing trends, such as the necessity for boost efficiency, bolster device effectiveness, and deliver a higher ROI. MedTech companies are now facing new demands to work with healthcare organizations in a hybrid environment. Medtech companies are also embracing innovative patient engagement models to support healthcare providers, both during, and post treatment. They need to be flexible to meet the dynamic and rapidly changing needs and expectations. And most of all, they also require a holistic view of data, facilitate collaboration across teams, and the requisite digital tools. That’s where an all integrated CRM platform like Salesforce comes into play. More than forecasting and managing customer contacts, Salesforce securely connects data from disconnected systems and delivers a unified experience to providers, patients, and partners on their channel of preference. This enables MedTech businesses to connect teams, integrate different data sources across existing systems, and deliver intelligent insights. Let’s explore how Salesforce helps Medtech companies drive business excellence, streamline innovation, deliver tailored experiences, deliver value, and boost efficiency. Drive business excellence with digital, connected experiences Seles models were adapting to change even prior to the pandemic. The only change now is that pace has accelerated. Consolidation amongst hospitals with adoption of enterprise-wide subscription-based models started to happen. Today, purchase decisions are moving faster now. And safety protocols are resulting is sales teams virtually interacting with decision makers. On top of that, tighter budgets means healthcare providers are now more demanding. They expect the devices they buy to deliver improved patient outcomes at a lower cost. To move forward, it is imperative that medtech businesses have a holistic view of their customers to better understand their needs and consequently provide personalised engagement and service. The Salesforce platform acts as a knowledge-sharing center, enabling sales teams to drive business excellence by taking advantage of a 360-degree customer view while working off the same platform. Streamline your technology Many MedTech organizations depend on multiple technology systems that don’t always work well with each other or deliver an engaging customer experience. Standardization of data from legacy systems on a unified platform helps make information easier to manage. Salesforce solves this problem of dealing with multiple systems and consolidates data by seamlessly integrating data from existing solutions. Salesforce Customer 360 connects all touchpoints of the customer journey.  These include manufacturing, supply chain, marketing, sales, clinical and service. With a unified view of all data, businesses get better visibility and are able to maintain relationships better across the business. Not only that, it also delivers consistent, personalized experiences. A flexible and scalable platform like Salesforce accelerates business excellence, fosters collaboration, and empowers teams. Not only that, you can also build on top of the Salesforce platform with new functionality with new apps, for internal staff, partners or customers. This allows you to: Take advantage out-of-the-box services. Easy to use drag-and-drop functionality enables anyone on your team to develop apps without even writing a single line of code. Drive innovation. Stay focused on high-value projects with available and tools and apps. Drive governance and compliance. Out-of-the-box functionalities like integration and identity services ensure app development follows requisite guidelines. Advise customers with actionable insights Those tiny moments matter the most. That’s when access to accurate information is critical – whether you’re a physician in the middle of a procedure, a staff member who needs to transfer stock, or a patient beginning their treatment journey with a wearable device. With Salesforce, reps can access valuable, actionable data and insights from a single platform to best serve customers in a connected and intelligent manner. That lets MedTech companies act at speed and scale. The starting step to accomplish this is to aggregate data. Salesforce pulls in information from across the ecosystem so that everyone has visibility into: Real-time sales information that delivers production, marketing, and service team needs Research and development processes that impact production, quality assurance, and licensing Patient and clinical staff feedback that boosts evolution of devices and services Integrates Artificial intelligence that delivers critical data analytics and insights. These insights include predicted outcomes, recommended course of action, and automated workflows. From a single console, teams can deliver simpler, smarter and faster interactions. Start selling smarter and drive ROI In the fast-changing Medtech industry, businesses must meet increasing customer expectations for better patient outcomes and improved ROI quickly and efficiently. Digital tools accelerate the sales cycle and deliver critical insights in an agile framework, even while working in virtual or hybrid selling models. Salesforce delivers a 360-degree view of customers and provides teams with deeper insights into customer activity and subsequently drives value. AI-based intelligence predicts sales activity, forecasts growth, and reveals areas of opportunity. When sales teams can personalize interaction and sell proactively, businesses can foster deeper relationships and build customer trust. With Salesforce Customer 360 you can: Get next best actions. Teams can access each customer’s detailed account history for accurate forecasting along with recommended next best actions. AI can prioritize sales activities and spot new opportunities to help close deals faster. Stay close to current and prospective customers. Reps can increase the reach and frequency of selling activities, thereby improving account and territory performance and later assessing effectiveness based on insights from flexible dashboards. Gain real-time insights into market conditions. Reps can compare territory performance with forecast and industry data in a real-time view. Quickly onboard new team members. New reps can train in a centralized location for sales and enablement. Salesforce speeds up the procurement cycle and helps reps stay close to current customers while prospecting new ones. Improve engagement with personalization Medtech businesses were already becoming more involved in the patient journey by providing services that helped patients use devices properly. But in 2020, the ability to engage virtually became even more valuable as HCPs adapted to remote patient monitoring during the pandemic. In addition to telemedicine and hybrid treatment models, digital tools that engage patients before, during, and after care are poised to become the norm. Salesforce enables medtech organizations securely log patient information and facilitate virtual, hybrid, and in-person treatment. For example, patients can request data to stay better informed about their health and actively involved in care decisions. Patients can also access product details on mobile apps and community websites and connect with other patients with similar health conditions. This creates peer to peer personalized experiences at every interaction point. In one example, a remote monitoring sticker helped medical professionals track the symptoms of sick patients recovering at home. With Salesforce, their agents could answer questions about the device from patients who were reaching out to the company directly. The 360-degree view enabled agents to create a case and provide streamlined services. Salesforce Customer 360 captures contact information and communication preferences to keep everyone up to date on new products and solutions. This also allows Medtech businesses to nurture prospective patients by guiding prospects to the right products. What’s next? The pandemic may have changed how Medtech organizations engage with providers and patients, but customer-focus is still at the heart of everything they do. Salesforce Customer 360 is far from your traditional CRM: You can connect teams and integrate data on one flexible, secure platform and deliver a unified experience for providers and patients alike. Salesforce can help you go digital fast, accelerate value, and transform your business. With greater across the value chain, you can manage commercial processes, build provider relationships, and engage with patients in the most intelligent, efficient, and personalized way. This all leads to better outcomes for your business, your customers, and their patients. Get in touch with a Salesforce Implementation Partner today.