Medical Call Center Industry News

August 2005

1Call Receives HCA Vendor Integration Certification

The Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) has awarded Vendor Integration Certification (VIC) to the 1Call Infinity system, for use with ADT (admissions, discharges, transfers) transactions.  HCA is a leading provider of healthcare services, composed of locally managed facilities that include approximately 190 hospitals and 91 outpatient surgery centers. 

The modular 1Call Infinity call center and intelligent PC console system platform is currently being used by more than 150 healthcare organizations.  Infinity receives real-time ADT information, which is automatically updated in its directories, ensuring all operators have access to the most current patient information for accurate and fast call processing. 

 "1Call is very excited about the opportunity to work with the family of HCA healthcare facilities," said Tom Curtin, President of Amtelco.  "1Call has developed a variety of software tools that allows HCA facilities to increase efficiency, eliminate errors, increase patient customer satisfaction, and increase revenue."

For more information, contact 1Call at 800-356-9148 or email info@1call.com.

Telescan Celebrates 30 Years

Thirty years of successful business calls for a party and that's what Telescan did during the ATSI (Association of Teleservices International) show in June in St. Louis.  In 1975 when George and Judy Meyer founded Telescan, it fit an important need, providing a reliable and efficient system for telephone answering services.  Today, Telescan products are designed with an architectural philosophy to be the best in the industry and to fit the needs of its users.

In 2002 when Robert Riggs, Jr. and Roger Young purchased Telescan, they were committed to the development of new products to help call centers take advantage of technological advances and the growing demand for wireless communications.  In the past three years, Telescan has been introducing new products at a rapid rate, including Spectrum Messenger, Spectrum IVR, Spectrum VMail, Spectrum Data Manager, and Spectrum Data Saver.

For more information, call 800-770-7662.

TouchStar Named to Fastest Growing List

The Denver Business Journal named TouchStar a finalist in its annual Fastest Growing Large Private Companies competition.  TouchStar, a contact center dialer software developer, received this recognition for consistent, steady growth over the past four years.

TouchStar is a privately held developer of software based phone systems with headquarters in Denver, CO.  The company also has sales offices in Denver, Atlanta, Tampa and Jacksonville.  TouchStar currently has offices in Leeds, England; Montreal, Canada; and Manila, Philippines.  Together with the Denver team, they provide around the clock customer support.

Steve Bederman, TouchStar CEO, stated, "We attribute this growth to our commitment to customer satisfaction.  By building relationships that are based upon honesty, integrity, and a sincere interest in our clients' businesses, we are proving  (and others are noticing) that these qualities are the keys to sustained growth.  Doing the right thing for our clients is making a difference! 

Contact TouchStar at 866-338-0678.

HealthLine Systems Recognizes Emory Healthcare

HealthLine Systems, Inc. announced that its Sharp Focus® Client Advisory Panel has selected Emory Healthcare of Atlanta, Georgia as the 2005 winner of the Client Recognition Award.  HealthLine Systems provides software solutions for health care organizations.  The Client Recognition Award recognizes tangible contribution to a health care organization through the use of Sharp Focus healthcare contact center software and Internet solution.  The Upstate Teleservices contact center serving Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System in Spartanburg, South Carolina was recognized with honorable mention.

The Sharp Focus Client Advisory Panel selected Emory Healthcare for the 2005 award in recognition of their innovative leadership using Sharp Focus to support the Emory Employee Access program. The result was an increase in the percent of care provided internally from 53% in calendar 2002 to 55% in 2003 and 59% in 2004. 

Lori McLelland, Emory Healthcare Director of Marketing and Director of the Emory HealthConnection contact center, accepted this recognition at HealthLine Systems' recent client dinner in Atlanta.  Lori and her team were honored with an engraved crystal award to the applause of HealthLine clients.

For more information, email at RStier@HealthLineSystems.com.

CadCom Announces Release of Contact Center Software Products

CadCom Telesystems released Version 2.1 software for its AccuCall product line.  Its AccuScript Pro offers both outbound and inbound calling to provide new opportunities for call centers.  The product enables call center managers to create call flow scripts for inbound and outbound applications.  Additionally, AccuCall Version 2.1 offers features that support web-integrated client portals and distributed agent configurations.

"A rapid and emerging trend in the call center industry is centered around generating new revenues and increasing productivity by transitioning into more distributed agent configurations, so that qualified talent can be employed without geographic restrictions," said Ray S. Naeini, Chairman and CEO of CadCom's parent company, OnviSource, Inc. "Our CadCom strategy is to pioneer products that fully support such positive trends in the call center industry."

"Our new software package offers vertical revenue-bearing applications supported by a complete and integrated set of call center functionalities, including in-bound and out-bound call handling, agent productivity tools, quality assurance, and voice logging," said CadCom Chief Operating Officer, Stan Jasinski.  "We have utilized advanced Internet, unified messaging and portal technologies to bring real solutions to the emerging requirements of today's call centers."

New Infinity Features Simplify and Improves Call Handling

The 1Call Division of Amtelco announced new features, including the Infinity button bar and the Infinity pop-up answer phrase.  The new Infinity button bar is displayed below the call window and answer phrase window on the Infinity operator screen.  It shows the F1-F12 function keys, along with a text description of what each key does, such as "Line 1," "Done," and "Directory." 

According to Amtelco President Tom Curtin, "The Infinity button bar makes call handling even more intuitive and user-friendly.  The labels on each button can be customized to match whatever function each hospital wants to have."  Some common uses include transferring calls to specific departments, code calls, and displaying the on-call schedule.

With the Infinity pop-up answer phrase, the answer phrase is displayed at a larger size for the first few seconds after the call is answered.  This helps bring the operator focus to the answer phrase when they first connect. 

For more information, contact 1Call at 800-356-9148 or email info@1call.com.

Telescan Spectrum Data Manager Breaks Sales Records

When Telescan released their new Spectrum Data Manager in January, their hope was to sell 10 to 15 units by mid year.  However, the reception to the new program has surpassed all predictions with 30 units sold by the first of June.

Spectrum Data Manager is the newest generation of telephone answering systems developed by Telescan.  It is the heart of the Telescan system, controlling access to all client information and system configuration parameters.  Spectrum Data Manager combines a database server with networking and reporting capabilities including support for multiple time-zones, remote agent workstations, integrated order entry, on-call scheduling, and instant messaging.

To learn more, call Telescan at 800-770-7662.

Study Provides Profile of Health Care Call Center Callers

A study that analyzes more than half a million caller records was released by The Beryl Companies.  The study's goal is to help better understand the makeup of callers in order to make informed marketing decisions. The study is believed to be one of the largest of its kind ever produced for health care call centers.  "Over the past 20 years, we have interacted with more than 17 million individuals via the telephone and the Internet," Paul Spiegelman, CEO of Beryl said.

The benchmarking study evaluated 513,097 caller records for the period from September 1, 2003 through August 31, 2004.  The overall analysis revealed that nearly 48.7 percent were new callers, average age of the caller was 44.6 years, and 71.3 percent were female.  The top five media sources (how heard) were hospital, Yellow Pages, Internet, physician, and newspaper.

Demographic variables evaluated in the study include: age, gender, type of caller (new versus repeat, and media sources. The study segmented results by type of client organization: non-profit, for-profit, or academic medical center; size of hospital; and region where hospital is located.

IEX System Helps Healthcare Support Services Company

IEX Corporation announced the performance improvements one of the company's large healthcare support services customers gained using the TotalView Workforce Management system.  Improvements include consolidating 12 individual sites into two virtual sites, realizing a 91.78 percent schedule efficiency, meeting a 95 percent schedule adherence goal, and creating a vacation bidding process that gave 98 percent of their staff one of their top-three choices

The company has been a TotalView Workforce Management user since 2001.  "They've done an excellent job using the system to meet the needs of both their customers and agents," said IEX President Debbie May.  "The company's achievements are an excellent example of how continuously seeking operational improvements can pay off."

The client operates five 24/7 contact centers that employ more than 600 agents, including work-at-home staff, with 33 active skill types.  These agents address health, well-being, and work-life issues.  On a yearly basis, the call center receives approximately 5.4 million live inbound calls and more than 200,000 clinical voice mails.  Additionally, the agents handle outbound calls, Internet chat, and fax contacts.

CadCom Delivers Compact Call Center Solution

CadCom Telesystems, a wholly owned subsidiary of OnviSource, Inc., announced the addition of the newly released AccuCall LDX server platform to the AccuCall product line, completing a full line of scalable solutions for call centers.  With the addition of the AccuCall LDX server, CadCom Telesystems now provides a cost-effective solution with advanced vertical applications for small, distributed, and virtual call center operations.

"Providing call center products that offer new and innovative solutions to the growing needs and trends of the industry - such as small, distributed, and virtual call centers - is part of our core strategy to empower contact centers to transition to new levels of incremental revenues and productivity," said Ray S. Naeini, Chairman and CEO of OnviSource, the holding company that owns CadCom Telesystems.  "Introduction of AccuCall LDX is a big step toward successfully executing our strategy."

The AccuCall LDX platform is built on client/server architecture with digital network compatibility and incorporates all the software features of larger AccuCall configurations, such as call processing, group-based routing, on-call scheduling with automatic paging, custom messaging and ordering formats, message histories, reporting features, and remote management capabilities.

Amcom Announces 2005 Users' Conference

The annual Amcom Software Users' Conference will take place Oct. 2 to Oct. 5, 2005.  It will be held at the Minneapolis Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Minneapolis, MN.  The conference will be an opportunity for Amcom system users to get the latest updates on attendant console, speech recognition, and emergency notification technologies; attend Amcom labs and training sessions; and participate in breakout sessions on system security, paging, and other topics.  Special presentations include "Call Center Solutions and Performance Initiatives" and "Healthcare Consequence Management: How Prepared Are You?"

For more information, contact Tiffany Collins at tcollins@amcomsoft.com or 888-337-9274.