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Imagine being pregnant for the first time. You call your OB-GYN and schedule your very first maternity appointment. This exciting new chapter comes with a lot of unanswered questions and you completely trust your physician’s opinions and recommendations. At the entry of your appointment into the physicians scheduling software, an email is triggered and sent to you that states:

Dear Mrs. Jones,

Thank you for trusting Dr. Reddy with your pregnancy care. We are excited to start this journey with you. In advance of your appointment on January 12th, Dr. Reddy recommends that her patients begin to get acquainted with the journey of a pregnancy with the book, “What to Expect when you are Expecting”. You can select the link below to purchase the book and it will be delivered to you within 3-5 days. Alternatively, the book is widely available at bookstores and online.

The triggered email engages with the patient as well as providing forms of revenue to the practice via the sale of a product that the physician already recommends.

This process is possible through a software program that is integrated into the EMR. The software can track a customer’s healthcare needs and subsequently recommend appropriate products or services to them.

The key components of the software should be:

• An activity tracking system which monitors and analyzes patient data, diagnosis codes, medications, appointments etc.
• A learning engine that receives input from the medical record and, using algorithms is able to develop a health profile and subsequent product or service recommendations
• A messaging system that is secure and which delivers a list of the recommended products and/or services to the patient
• An ecommerce system that presents recommendations and processes orders. based upon the patient’s condition, the patient’s lifestyle, and the like
• A shopping tracking system that records the products that the patient customer is purchasing