RelianceUnited switched to Google Workspace to transform how employees work and collaborate. It migrates healthcare data and apps to Google Cloud to boost data security and simplify the patient experience.
Owned by Unilab, RelianceUnited operates a network of outpatient healthcare businesses such as corporate clinics, primary care clinics, dialysis centers, and outpatient surgical centers to improve access to medical care in the Philippines.
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Philippines
RelianceUnited switched to Google Workspace to transform how employees work and collaborate. It migrates healthcare data and apps to Google Cloud to boost data security and simplify the patient experience.
Google Workspace Results
Enhances collaboration, ensures security, saves money
• Speeds up preparation of contracts and client presentations by enabling real-time collaboration via Docs, Slides, and Sheets
• Prevents sensitive data in corporate clinics from unauthorized access, with security features including Google two-factor authentication on Chromebooks
• Saved 5 to 10 million Philippine pesos in system customization fees through ready-made solutions on Google Workspace Marketplace
• Secures and unifies data on Google Cloud to build a next-generation healthcare platform
“Many healthcare companies in the Philippines rely heavily on legacy IT systems. Google gives us an opportunity to transform our business and build a cloud-based platform that gives us a competitive advantage.” - David San Pedro, President, RelianceUnited
According to , the Philippines needs to add 40,000 to 45,000 additional hospital beds, health facilities, and physicians to meet rising healthcare demand from more than 100 million Filipinos. Traditionally, the healthcare system is focused on treating chronic illnesses. Healthcare provider wants to build a network of outpatient services that simplifies the patient journey and delivers better value through wellness management and disease prevention.
As a challenger in the healthcare industry, RelianceUnited needs to push the boundaries and be more efficient than traditional players. David San Pedro, President at RelianceUnited, is the driving force behind the company's digital transformation with and .
"Many healthcare companies in the Philippines rely heavily on legacy IT systems. Google Cloud gives us an opportunity to transform our business and build a cloud-based platform that gives us a competitive advantage," says David. "Google Workspace provides robust built-in features and third-party applications that empower our business and our users."
Speeding up approvals through collaboration on Sheets and Slides
“With Google Workspace, we’ve significantly cut down the amount of time it takes to deliver client presentations. Files are synced automatically, so we're always working on the latest version, no matter what device we’re using.” - David San Pedro, President, RelianceUnited
Before Google Workspace, employees had to spend valuable time waiting for approvals on business-critical documents such as client presentations. The review process was sequential, which meant Person A had to send the document to Person B for approval before the next approver could review it.
"Document approval was a source of stress for many of us. People used to spend three to four hours waiting to review documents on their desktops after work," says David. "Often, we didn't know if the document had been sent or if it was stuck in the outbox."
RelianceUnited migrated from its legacy desktop environment to Google Workspace within a matter of weeks. All 500 full-time employees managing more than 300 corporate clinics, nine outpatient clinics, and seven dialysis centers are using Google Workspace. Employees now collaborate on shared documents using for presentation and for spreadsheets that can be accessed anywhere, anytime, and from any device.
"With Google Workspace, we’ve significantly cut down the amount of time it takes to deliver client presentations," David adds. "Files are synced automatically, so we're always working on the latest version, no matter what device we’re using. Productivity has improved dramatically."
"More importantly, collaborating on Google Workspace brings us closer together," says David. "Our subsidiaries used to operate in silos. We are building a connected workforce because we're talking to each other every day on Google Meet and collaborating on Google Workspace."
Preventing data leaks with secure team messaging on Google Chat
Mobile phones plays a central role in how employees share financial information. As the head of the business, David used to receive text messages from each clinic with a daily summary of sales performance.
"Sending financial information via text messages can put our organization at risk," says David. "Communicating via defined groups on is far more secure."
"In an environment where people are moving in and out of different roles, we can control who can receive what information through Google Workspace, specifically Google Meet," David adds. "We couldn't do that through other chat applications. We like the fact that Google Meet is limited to whoever is allowed on our Google Workspace domain."
On Google Chat, RelianceUnited creates defined groups such as "End of Day Reports" that includes all the clinics. Each clinic copies financial data such as the number of services rendered, the number of patients who came in, and the top line revenue figure for the day into the chat.
For weekly executive meetings, RelianceUnited uses to transform detailed financial data from Sheets into interactive charts with key metrics such as patient count, revenue per clinic, and top services administered during that week.
"The numbers themselves present a point-in-time snapshot," says David. "Visualizing the numbers with Google Data Studio helps us see how the business is trending."
Protecting sensitive patient records on secure Chromebooks
“We’re saving time and money from on-site visits, as Chromebooks require no maintenance, and fully comply with client end-point security guidelines. Without additional security software investment, we couldn’t do that with a traditional PC environment.” - David San Pedro, President, RelianceUnited
To ensure RelianceUnited maintains a high level of data privacy measures, the company progressively introduced in 2019 at 34 newly acquired corporate clinics for nurses to securely access cloud-based Electronic Medical Records (EMR). It plans to execute a complete replacement of an additional 300 devices with Chromebooks in 2020.
Healthcare providers rely on this electronic database to understand their patients’ medical history and provide appropriate healthcare.
Before Chromebooks, access to medical records was fragmented. Clinics kept written medical records for each patient that wasn't readily available to the other clinics that may have been providing care to that same patient. Nurses had to look up paper charts for each booking and clinic visit. Now, patients experience a shorter waiting time as nurses can log on to EMR, via a secure Chrome browser, for a complete view of the patient's medical history.
"We provide peace of mind to our corporate clients and their employees knowing that sensitive data is handled securely on Chromebooks," says David. "Only authorized users such as nurses can access EMR with a secure login. When a nurse is logged out or leaves the organization, this individual can no longer look up medical records on the database."
The Chromebook is light, simple to use, and set up with only the essential applications, such as Google Workspace and a time log for nurses to clock in and clock out. It's ideal for nurses to securely access EMR for their work, without other distractions. RelianceUnited limits the exposure of its Chromebooks to malware by restricting internet access, downloads, and app installation through whitelisting.
The IT administrators at RelianceUnited assign role-based access controls to define who can access what information on the Chromebooks and how information is shared to avoid any cyber threats.
"We like the administrative capabilities on Chromebooks," David shares. "We’re saving time and money from on-site visits, as Chromebooks require no maintenance, and fully comply with client end-point security guidelines. Without additional security software investments, we couldn’t do that in a traditional PC environment."
Simplifying integration with plug-and-play apps on Google Workspace
RelianceUnited uses , a customer relationship management application designed for Google Workspace, to track sales opportunities. Using Copper, the salesperson can see what accounts they're working on, what new accounts are coming in, as well as what's in the pipeline. Before Google Workspace, the team relied on spreadsheets to track sales leads, but this manual process lacked consistency and accuracy.
Copper integrates seamlessly with Google Workspace. Users log in with their Google account for a single sign-on. When a salesperson receives an email from a prospect at a given company, the details of that company are automatically populated into Copper from Gmail.
"CRM is no longer a stumbling block for our sales team. Copper tracks every single interaction from the date of the last visit through Calendar to the last email thread through Gmail. We now have visibility in our sales funnel to prioritize our opportunities more accurately."
RelianceUnited also uses Google independent software vendor partner for their intranet to share company news and events with employees.
"We're able to extend the value of Google Workspace by using LumApps as our intranet solution," says David. "Building our intranet site from scratch would have cost millions of Philippine pesos and long setup time."
Reinventing healthcare delivery through digital innovation
"We're always looking for more opportunities to work with Google. We’re currently working with Google on a data lake project which consolidates all our healthcare data in a secure environment and unifies patient records," shares David. "This will form the backbone of our next-generation EMR and healthcare platform."
With data science partners such as Thinking Machines, the company is learning to use BigQuery to analyze its data and create predictive healthcare models to help its clients identify employees at risk for chronic disease earlier.
"We’ve also just started a project that applies Google engines to simplify processes such as benefits claims adjudication, which is currently highly manual and time consuming," adds David. "We’re confident that our partnership with Google and investment in Google Cloud will be a game changer for RelianceUnited as it seeks to simplify and deliver better value in Philippine healthcare."
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