The Starship Enterprise, Salesforce and Persistent Healthcare – Dammit Jim, I’m a doctor not a software developer!

Reading that title, I’m sure you’re asking what???  Well just stick with me for a moment.

I have to be honest, I’m a bit of a Trekkie. I’ve always enjoyed Star Trek, first on TV and then the movies. One of my favorite movies of the franchise was released back in 1986; The Voyage Home. It resonated with me because it was about environmental issues and because it took place in my adopted US hometown of San Francisco. After traveling back in time, the crew of the Starship Enterprise return to San Francisco and upon seeing it Dr. McCoy – Bones – happily observes “It doesn’t look all that different.”  That was a great thing to hear for those of us who love The City.

OK, what’s this have to do with Salesforce and healthcare? First San Francisco is Salesforce’s hometown.  And what gets me – especially as we talk about born in the cloud companies – Salesforce wasn’t even around in 1986 and yet today it is one of the largest and most influential companies in the world! The other thing is a scene from the movie where the aforementioned Bones quickly cures Checkov using, basically, software. You know what, it turns out the future is now.

Building on the release of Health Cloud in February, last week Salesforce announced Telehealth Solution for Salesforce Health Cloud.  This newest innovation brings two-way video communications to health providers and their patients, providing even greater engagement. We at Persistent couldn’t be prouder to be one of the trusted partners helping Salesforce develop this. In fact, for the last few years we’ve been working with health providers across the country to create better patient experiences through Salesforce’s innovative solutions. Father Martin’s Ashley is a great example of the power of this collaboration as they’ve been able to streamline patientcare for the treatment of alcoholism and drug dependency.

All of this requires a whole new way of thinking not just in business, but in development. Software 4.0 is our vision for that and as it comes into focus, it’s the vision of a world where everything is “software-driven,” including our health! Persistent and Salesforce have not only worked together to develop great solutions, we’ve helped our customers maximize their investments in Salesforce. In fact, some of our customers – like VisitOps, which manages the onsite customer and executive visit process – have leapfrogged legacy companies entirely and were just born digital, thanks to Salesforce!

So if you’ll allow me to paraphrase the opening of Star Trek, Persistent is boldly taking our customers where none have gone before… Digital! We’d like you to come with us!