Spotlight on: 1Call, a Division of Amtelco:

Helping healthcare organizations effectively manage

day-to-day and crisis communications

October/November 2011

For over 35 years, Amtelco has been providing communication applications to call centers around the world. In 1997, the 1Call Division was formed to offer enterprise-wide communication solutions designed specifically for healthcare organizations. 1Call is dedicated to serving the unique call center and communication needs of healthcare organizations, helping improve interactions between patients, physicians, and staff.

Our Customers Say It Best: Capital Health is Nova Scotia’s largest provider of health services. They operate hospitals, health centers, and community-based programs throughout Halifax Regional Municipality and the western part of Hants County. Faced with rising “no-show” rates when people missed their scheduled appointments, the Capital Health call center was asked to make reminder calls. The result was significant.

“We actually dropped their no-show rate from nine percent to one percent,” said Betty Bouchie, senior systems analyst, voice services, with Capital Health. “When we started doing calls for them, their average wait list was about nine months. We dropped it down to about six months with manual calls, and it’s three months now with Pro Show. The second that the word got out of the impact we had made, we had people lined up down the block. They want the same thing.”

Valley Health is a not-for-profit organization serving the healthcare needs of residents in Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. Helping patients manage their pain is important to every healthcare facility, however, monitoring and recording each patient’s pain level on an ongoing basis takes a large amount of a nurse’s time. Lorraine Leake, director of the transfer center and communications at Valley Health, came up with a solution, saving time by automating the process using their 1Call Infinity system and their GetWellNetwork pain monitoring system.

“For a pain scale of zero to three, when the nurse doesn’t have to do anything since the patient’s pain is being controlled, it saved 69,066 minutes in a two-month period, which turns out to be 1,151 hours. For a pain scale rating from four to ten, where the nurse would have to do something, it saved 74,988 minutes, basically 1,249 hours within a two-month period,” stated Susan Clark, RN clinical manager for the float pool at Valley Health.

Creating Lasting Partnerships: Every patient deserves the best care possible. 1Call’s goal is to provide healthcare organizations with the tools to efficiently handle caller’s requests on a single phone call, saving time, eliminating confusion, and providing patients with premier service. 1Call systems integrate with existing legacy IT and PBX networks to save costs and bring information together in a single location. 1Call has developed partnerships with Avaya, Cisco, Digium, HL7, and NEC.

Because of the detailed working relationship with customers, 1Call also considers each customer a partner organization. By continuing to meet and exceed their needs, the list of 1Call partners continues to grow throughout the US and Canada – at organizations both large and small.

Featuring 5-Star Service and Support: 1Call works closely with each healthcare organization, helping them design a customized system that meets their unique needs. 1Call has a reputation for complete, professional system support, offering training, installation, and technical support staff on-call on a 24-hour basis. Approximately 70 percent of the customer care group has been with Amtelco for ten or more years. This promotes a comfortable working relationship between customers and the customer care group. 1Call’s 5-Star Service and Support is more than just a slogan, it comes with every 1Call system and includes:

• An informed customer care group

• Experienced trainers and installers

• Knowledgeable field engineers

• On-line resource library and tech helper

• The largest healthcare call center user’s group

Innovation in Action: 1Call designs console attendant switchboard solutions that streamline hospital-wide communications. Frequent software releases give customers access to the newest features and technology. 1Call’s solutions are ideal for both small and large healthcare organizations.

The 1Call systems reduce the training time needed for operators, creating a fast ROI. Web-based access also simplifies procedures for operators and for staff members. Detailed reporting is included with each 1Call solution, keeping the call center informed.

1Call features include:

• Enhanced Call Management Solutions: Featuring Intuitive Call Flow Navigation: simplifying call handling, reducing training time by up to 80%, and eliminating errors with customized call flow scripts. Supervisors can easily edit existing call flow scripts or create new scripts at any time. Script libraries that handle a wide variety of call types are also available for customers to download and/or upload. The code call process is just one of the call flow scripts that help operators and personnel efficiently handle codes hospital-wide.

• Web and Mobile Communications: Keep physicians and staff informed, no matter where they are. 1Call’s Web and mobile communications allows them to access contact information, view and edit on-call schedules, and look at their messages using Web or mobile phone access.

• Secure Communications: Maintaining privacy for your physicians, staff, patients, and your organization is vital. 1Call helps you ensure you provide secure communications with encrypted messaging for Android™ mobile devices, BlackBerry®, iPad®, iPhone®, and iPod Touch®.

• Scheduling Solutions: 1Call features automated workforce scheduling, allowing complex schedules for entire departments to be quickly created. The 1Call on-call schedules allow physicians and staff members to view, enter, and edit their own on-call schedules. The automated schedules ensure that operators always contact the correct on-call person.

• Voice Services: Save time for internal and external callers by automating routine phone calls and provide better service for patients with IVR and speech solutions. The voice services solutions also allow operators to pre-record answer phrases, create multi-party conference calls, and automatically record incoming calls, outgoing calls, and screen captures, helping verify information and ensure that calls are being handled properly and speed operator training.

• Notification Solutions: Quickly getting personnel to the correct location is essential for healthcare organizations. The 1Call notification solutions are ideal for emergency communications, as well as for day-to-day communications, featuring automated and secure SMS, email, and paging for HL7 integrations. In addition to helping personnel provide better patient care, the 1Call notification solutions also help customers be proactive and provide better service by reminding patients about upcoming appointments.

• Reporting: Everything that happens in the call center is tracked, maintaining complete and accurate statistics for quality assurance reports and other custom reports.

Early History: 1Call has a strong history in the telemessaging industry. Amtelco, the parent company of 1Call, was founded in 1976 to provide communication applications to the answering service and medical messaging industry. Bill Curtin, the founder of Amtelco, received his first telecommunications patent in 1951. Since that time, Amtelco’s innovation has added 30 patents.

Amtelco Today: Under the leadership of Chairwoman of the Board Eleanor Curtin and Pesident Tom Curtin, Amtelco’s main office in Wisconsin houses personnel in solutions development, customer care, field engineering, manufacturing, and administrative staff. Amtelco also has twelve sales offices and six customer care offices throughout the U.S. and Canada.

A Bright Future: 1Call is dedicated to continuing to provide healthcare organizations with the solutions needed to offer more services while containing costs. By working closely with customers, 1Call will continue to develop innovative features and products.

For more information, call 800-225-6035 or email to info@1call.com.