Migrate from Zedmed to Mailchimp

Each Zedmed patient with a valid email address becomes a single Mailchimp audience member. Patients without email addresses are excluded from the migration but flagged in a separate report for manual follow-up. Mailchimp requires at minimum an email address to create an audience member.

Zedmed's patient first name field maps directly to Mailchimp's built-in FNAME merge field, which is automatically available on every audience without any additional configuration. This direct mapping ensures immediate compatibility between the two systems, allowing practices to import patient first names without needing to create custom merge fields or modify Mailchimp audience settings.

Zedmed's patient surname maps to Mailchimp's built-in LNAME merge field with no transformations applied. The original name formatting is preserved exactly as recorded in Zedmed, whether it includes prefixes, suffixes, or special characters. This ensures accurate patient identification in Mailchimp while maintaining data integrity across both platforms.

The patient email address in Zedmed becomes the Mailchimp audience member email address, which serves as the unique identifier for each contact record. Before importing, we perform comprehensive email validation including format checking to identify invalid addresses and prevent hard bounces. This ensures data quality and maintains sender reputation in Mailchimp's sending environment.

Zedmed mobile and phone number fields map to Mailchimp's built-in PHONE merge field, preserving Australian mobile format (+61 ...) exactly as stored. Patients without recorded phone numbers are imported with the PHONE field left blank, while those with valid numbers retain their original formatting. This approach ensures compatibility with Mailchimp's phone-based features and segmentation options.

Zedmed's multi-field address components (street, suburb, state, postcode) map to Mailchimp's compound ADDRESS merge field using the standard field structure (ADDR1 for street, CITY for suburb, STATE for state, ZIP for postcode). Rural/suburban address nuances in Australian addresses are preserved as entered in Zedmed.

Zedmed patient category codes (set in Practice Setup) are translated into Mailchimp tags per contact. A patient with categories 'GP' and 'Allied Health' receives two tags in Mailchimp. Tags enable segment-based campaigns (e.g., targeting only GP patients for flu vaccination reminders).

Zedmed's patient communication preference (email consent, SMS consent) maps to Mailchimp's member status. Contacts with email marketing consent in Zedmed import as subscribed; contacts without explicit consent import as unsubscribed or are held for double opt-in confirmation email. We flag which patients have active email consent vs. no consent before import.

Zedmed patient date of birth maps to a custom Mailchimp DATE merge field labeled BIRTHDAY, enabling automated birthday campaign triggers within Mailchimp's customer journey builder. The date format is converted from Zedmed's storage format to MM/DD for Mailchimp's birthday automation engine compatibility. This field supports personalized patient outreach on special occasions and enables time-based segmentation for birthday-related communications.

If Zedmed stores appointment types or recall categories (e.g., '6-week check', 'annual skin check'), these translate to Mailchimp tags. This allows practices to build Mailchimp customer journeys triggered by recall category — for example, tagging 'skin check recall' patients and enrolling them in a 12-month journey for the next reminder.

Zedmed billing and Medicare claiming data (item numbers, rebates, outstanding amounts) has no meaningful equivalent in Mailchimp. Billing data remains in Zedmed or is exported separately for accounting purposes. It does not migrate to Mailchimp for compliance and data-minimization reasons.

Zedmed clinical records — consultation notes, pathology results, e-prescriptions, imaging — are protected health information under Australian law. Mailchimp is a commercial email platform with no clinical data handling capability or healthcare compliance certification. Clinical data is not migratable and is excluded from all Mailchimp imports.

Zedmed appointment records (date, time, practitioner, appointment type) do not map to Mailchimp. Appointment scheduling data can be exported separately as a CSV for practices that want to cross-reference in a spreadsheet. Mailchimp's automation triggers are action-based (subscriber joins list, clicks link, has birthday), not calendar-schedule-based.