Welcome To AnswerStat Magazine!

By Peter DeHaan, Ph.D., Publisher

Summer, 2003

Let me be the first to welcome you to the premier issue of AnswerStat magazine.  AnswerStat is dedicated to providing you, our readers with practical, relevant, and useful information about healthcare and medical related call centers.  We are an advertiser-supported publication, which allows us to send this magazine to you, free of charge.  Here is some more information:

Who Receives AnswerStat?: AnswerStat is sent free to:

• Hospital call centers and phone centers

• Medical answering services

• Other healthcare related call centers.

What You Do: Readers of AnswerStat are involved in:

• Switchboard / PBX Console

• Medical Answering Service

• Nurse Triage

• Physician Referral

• Event Registration

• Scheduling

• Data Collection / Verification

• Insurance

• Other Medical Related Call Center Functions

• Consulting

You Can Help:  As I mentioned, AnswerStat is an advertiser-supported magazine.  This means that advertising revenue pays to have the magazine designed, printed, and mailed to you.  You do not need to pay for your subscription.  The more advertisers we have, the more useful content we can provide to you.  If your call center vendors are not advertising in AnswerStat, please encourage them to do so.  We will all benefit as a result.

Free Subscription:  Let your colleagues and associates know about AnswerStat.  They can sign up for a free subscription on our website at www.AnswerStat.com.  (If this issue is addressed to you, then you are all set and will continue to receive AnswerStat.)  The on-line form is quick and easy to fill out, asking only for information directly related to your subscription.  Because your time is valuable, we won't make you to fill out pages of irrelevant information or ask you to justify why you should receive our magazine.  That is just who we are, straightforward and no-nonsense.

Calling all Authors:  AnswerStat is looking for articles from our readers, those who work every day in medical related call centers and have real-world experience and knowledge that they are willing to share.  Regardless of your level of writing ability or skill, we can work with you to turn your article into a quality piece of which we will all be proud.  To get started, download our article guidelines from our website.  Next, email your ideas to dehaan@answerstat.com.  If you have an article already done, you may email it to me directly.  We will take it from there.

Our Website:  AnswerStat magazine has a website, www.AnswerStat.com.  This is designed to be a useful resource for you, our readers, whom we serve.  Here are some of the resources available at www.AnswerStat.com:

• A glossary of call center terms.

• Area code listings, sorted by area code and by state.  We also list codes that are being changed, as well as those that could be changed in the future.

• An on-line version of our Buyer's Guide.

• An article archive, including relevant articles from our sister publication, Connections Magazine.

• A subscription form.  It is free and takes less than a minute to fill out.

Editorial Advisory Board:  Would you be willing to invest a few minutes a month to provide input, ideas, and clarity about the articles in AnswerStat magazine?

The process will be simple.  Once or twice an issue, I will send out a broadcast email message about an idea or topic we are considering.  If you have feedback, simply reply to the email.  If you don't have a comment, or even if you happen too be busy, just delete the message.  Because of the power and efficiency of email, hundreds of readers can participate and help shape the future of the magazine.  If you are willing to assist, please contact me at dehaan@answerstat.com.

About the Publisher:  I, have over 20 years of experience in the call center and teleservice industry.  Most of that time was spent working in a call center in various technical and management capacities.  I also spent three years in the vendor side of the industry in customer support, programming, and documentation.  For the last three years, I have been working as a consultant, focusing on the needs of call centers.  Two years ago I became a magazine publisher with the purchase of Connections Magazine, which focuses on the needs of outsource call centers.  The combined experience of consulting for hospital and medical call centers and publishing a call center magazine has brought me to this point - launching a magazine specifically for medical related call centers.

Contact Us:  AnswerStat has a lean and efficient structure, this makes us accessible and easy to reach:

• Subscriptions, article guidelines, and other on-line resources: www.AnswerStat.com

• Advertising: Contact Valerie Port at 866-668-6694 or Valerie@AnswerStat.com

• Articles, advisory board, letters to the editor, and all other issues: Contact Peter DeHaan at 616-284-1305 or dehaan@answerstat.com

To read other articles written by Peter DeHaan, go to Vital Signs or check out his blog at blog.peterdehaan.com.  In addition to publishing AnswerStat and Connections Magazine, Peter offers custom publishing and Internet publishing (Article Weekly).  He may be reached at dehaan@answerstat.com or www.PeterDeHaan.com.