Mental health company builds custom system to improve patient and clinician experience and gain insights into operations
"Before Zoho, we had no visibility. Now we know things like 33% of potential patients call, and 33% of those fill out the form, and we have the ability to address issues as they come up." - Dan Solomon, General Manager, Island Practice Management
- INDUSTRYHealthcare
- Key AppsZoho One: CRM, Analytics, Projects, Desk
The company
Island Psychiatry and Island Practice Management (IPM) are sister organizations founded by Dr. Randall Solomon. Established in 2015, Island Psychiatry is a private psychiatry practice serving patients across New York, while its counterpart, Island Practice Management, is a Management Services Organization (MSO) that provides operational support for clinicians. IPM manages administrative functions such as billing, scheduling, phones, and HR, which allows the practice to focus on patient care. In 2018, both organizations began using Zoho to optimize their operations.
The challenge
"Being in mental health, not a lot of software was built for us.”
Island Psychiatry relied a lot on manual workflows and traditional Electronic Health Records systems that weren’t designed for task management or collaboration. This increased the risk of errors and slowed down time-sensitive processes—particularly when dealing with high-priority patients. In addition, while their EHR system met HIPAA compliance standards, it didn’t offer the right tools for client communication or operational support. The team needed a multifaceted solution that could enhance their task management capabilities while helping them stay compliant and adapt to the unique demands of a healthcare environment.
Manual Operations and the Risks Involved
Before implementing Zoho, Island Psychiatry depended on Electronic Health Records (EHRs) to help manage their data and some of their workflows, but EHRs are built to facilitate patient records, not collaboration and workflow management. At the time, none of their operations were automated, which introduced inefficiencies and the constant risk of human error.
EHR systems didn’t offer tools to manage or prioritize tasks, leaving staff to rely on handwritten notes and informal tracking systems. This lack of structure made it difficult to know what needed immediate attention and which tasks were already in progress. Without automation, day-to-day tasks relied heavily on the staff’s manual efforts to record and track information. Using an EHR exclusively felt like compromising on another equally important part of their operations.
In the healthcare industry, many operations are time sensitive, and the ability to respond to things quickly can be a matter of patient safety. This became particularly risky and time consuming when handling high-priority patients, and the urgent need for structured, automated processes grew along with the organization.
Compliance and Security
While EHRs are HIPAA compliant and provide a centralized, secure platform for storing and managing patient information, they lack the flexibility to manage client communications. To make up for this, the team had to find alternative ways to reach their clients, none of which were safe or practical. Balancing operational needs with HIPAA compliant solutions posed another major challenge. IPM needed software that was not only compliant but also catered to their healthcare-specific workflows and requirements.
The Solution
"Zoho's stance on customer data is very important to the owner. IPM has been reached out to by Zoho much more than any other vendor. Zoho clearly cares about making the best software for the customers. Our owner feels aligned here. It's all about doing what's best for the people you serve.”
To address these issues, IPM implemented Zoho One, selected for its versatility and ability to centralize operations while adapting to the nuances of the healthcare industry. Initially, they built the system in-house, turning on a wide range of applications. But as their needs evolved, IPM partnered with Nimbis Designs, a Zoho partner, to streamline and optimize their deployment. Nimbis Designs helped IPM refine their workflows, implement automation across multiple apps, and create a user experience tailored to healthcare operations. Miller noted that since beginning with Zoho, Zoho CRM has become HIPAA compliant, which made the transition into deeper usage seamless and secure.
Miller spearheaded the initiative to move the company onto Zoho, and her role as CPO meant that HR was a big part of the initial push. "Because we are a small startup, our leadership team wears a lot of hats, myself included. It was really important to have my time freed up, so being able to use Zoho People, Zoho Recruit, and all the HR platforms—with more automation—has really been essential to give back time," says Jessica Miller, Director of Compliance and Systems.
On the customer facing side, Dan Solomon, General Manager at IPM, says that "prior to using Zoho, our entire patient intake process was on one spreadsheet, and it was very haphazard. That system has been totally transformed. Now, we have an entire end-to-end lead process." By building out Zoho with a mix of out-of-the-box functionality and custom processes, the team found a solution that checked all their boxes without compromising the efficiency of their workflows: compliance, data storage and management, and simplified client communications.
“Automation has been really key for multiple departments,” says Jessica Miller, CPO. "Now we can automatically schedule check-ins based on when we last spoke to them [patients]."
Today, IPM uses Zoho across three core workflows:
Patient Intake
IPM needed a unique solution that could track and convert potential patients, because unlike tradition sales, they vet their leads to see if they would be a good fit as much as they try to attract them. To do this, they needed to adapt a sales system to meet the specific needs of the healthcare industry, and centralize data for a smoother onboarding process. In this workflow, prospective patients need to be carried from a form to CRM, and then through a deal pipeline similar to one managed by any sales team.
The combination of using both Zoho Forms and Zoho CRM has helped them smoothly carry out this workflow. Forms captures prospective patient information and pushes it into Zoho CRM, creating a clean intake pipeline. Payment forms are connected through Authorize.net and Zoho Books, feeding financial data back into CRM to maintain accurate records. Custom workflows within CRM automatically trigger follow-ups and next steps, improving both the intake experience and patient retention. Now CRM is utilized throughout the entire lifecycle of a patient, with automated imports of all appointments, forms, consents, and communications daily. Directly housing their data has saved administrative time and increased compliance for patient care.
Recruiting and HR
In order to free up time that went into HR processes, IPM also implemented a separate flow through Zoho's HR software to manage recruiting, onboarding, and internal HR processes while maintaining compliance.
"Recruiting has been a challenge for us. It takes so much time to find the right people." says Jessica Miller.
Zoho Recruit connects directly with Indeed and IPM's careers page and carries that candidate information through the entire interview process. Once a candidate is hired, their information is carried directly into Zoho People, which manages everything from timesheets to leave tracking and document storage.
The team also uses Zoho Shifts to accommodate varying schedules across roles. For compliance and training, Zoho Connect serves as a hub for compliance and educational materials, with the “Mandatory Reads” feature helping disseminate critical information that doesn’t require full-scale training.
Collaboration and Communication
IPM needed a centralized, secure, and efficient communication system that could support HIPAA-compliant exchanges and ensure consistency across teams. Zoho Mail is synced via iMAP with Zoho CRM, and Streams allows for shared visibility and team collaboration within email threads. Most contracts are handled via Zoho Forms, while sensitive or HIPAA-related documents requiring signatures use Zoho Sign.
Internal communications are streamlined through Zoho Cliq, and Zoho Connect plays a key role in sharing HR updates, onboarding manuals, and announcements—all while ensuring that communication is documented and easily accessible. As all clinicians and staff are communicate on Cliq, operations are faster and more reliable on the floor.
IPM stores resources and some project management in Connect, pairing it with other Zoho apps to cover all of their needs. “We have large stuff in Zoho Connect—projects with a lot of collaboration, videos and articles people may need to go back and reference—and smaller tasks in CRM,” says Miller. “We’ve built task layouts with due dates, requirements, and check-ins for each kind of task.” Without dedicated task tools, teams were flying blind; Zoho brought visibility, structure, and accountability into their workflows.
Benefits and ROI
The implementation of Zoho has significantly improved both the efficiency and accuracy of operations at Island Practice Management. By centralizing all patient and provider communications and records within a single, secure system, the organization has been able to trust in Zoho’s HIPAA-compliant infrastructure while dramatically reducing the chances of human error. Automation has played a key role in streamlining tasks that were previously manual—particularly within the intake process, where estimated errors have dropped by approximately 75%.
"Before Zoho, we had no visibility. Now we know things like 33% of potential patients call, and 33% of those fill out the form, and we have the ability to address issues as they come up. The fact that Zoho is so integrated helps with that visibility. You can track the whole journey of the task from start to finish. Patient retention has improved as well. You used to just look at the schedule and call someone if you hadn't seen them. Now we have a flow in place to carry people through the whole process if they haven't been coming in. Check on them, make sure they're ok,”
Looking Forward
Looking ahead, IPM is exploring Zoho Payroll as it becomes more viable in New York. They're considering Zoho Projects or Zoho Sprints to help them manage some complex project management requirements that they see coming up. They're also looking to implement AI within their current suite of Zoho products, and trial some products from the Marketing platform. With a solid Zoho foundation in place, they’re well-positioned to expand their use of the platform to further enhance automation and team coordination.