Medical Call Center Industry News

April 2005

Second Annual Reach for the Stars Pediatric Telehealth Conference

Mark your calendars for September 23 and 24, 2005 for the "Reach for the Stars: Pediatric Telehealth; Beyond Clinical Excellence in Triage," the second annual national pediatric telehealth conference hosted by Children's Physician Network's Triage Service.  The conference will be held at the Hotel Sofitel in Bloomington , MN , conveniently located close to the Mall of America and Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport.

The conference will feature nationally renowned speakers, including Dipti Amin, MD, medical director of the call center at All Children's Hospital, St. Petersburg, FL; Andrew Hertz, MD, from Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, Cleveland, OH; Sandy Melzer, MD, from Seattle Children's Hospital and current chair of the AAP's section on telephone care; Sheila Wheeler , RN, President of TeleTriage Systems, telephone triage author and consultant; and back by popular demand, Steven Poole, MD, telephone triage expert and author from Denver Children's Hospital.

Office and call center triage nurses, physicians, and administrators will find the conference an invaluable resource for pediatric triage.  Various industry exhibitors will be available both days of the conference.

For more information, email childrenstriage@childrenshc.org.

LVM Puts Schmitt's and Thompson's Protocols Online

For many years, physicians and their staff have relied on reference books for supporting office-hours and after-hours telephone care.  The long time standard, "Pediatric Telephone Protocols," authored by Barton Schmitt, MD is used by more than 10,000 practices.  "Adult Telephone Protocols," authored by David Thompson, MD is the companion reference used by many family practitioners.  In recent years, requests have grown for an electronic version of these mainstays which would automate protocol selection and provide for quick documentation.

Through an exclusive agreement with LVM Systems, Schmitt's and Thompson's office protocols are now automated by an Internet-based product referred to as D.O.C., or Doctor's Office Calls. It's priced from $500 to $750 per year, per user (based upon the number of users).  The product can be interfaced with LVM's Medical Call Center software, E-Centaurus.  LVM software clients will be able to exchange triage documentation with the physician practices they serve after-hours.

LVM Systems develops software and Internet solutions that support nurse triage, disease management, and referral and marketing services, serving medical call center and physician practices.

1Call Adds New Features to Voice Logger

The 1Call Infinity voice logger is a software-based call recording solution that automatically records all operator involvement with incoming and outgoing calls.  Voice logger integrates to the 1Call Infinity system, and is helpful in training new operators as well as a quality assurance tool.  Voice logger recordings are saved as WAV files, and can be sent via email to departments and physicians.  Call recordings can be archived and saved to another hard drive, a DVD, a CD, a tape, and other devices for long-term storage.

Infinity voice logger software version 2.1, introduced the ability to capture screen snapshots along with recordings, allowing supervisors to see exactly what the operator was seeing while handling a call.  This new software version also introduced an optional agent assessment form, a customizable electronic form that allows supervisors to rate each operator's call handling performance.  A few of the other new features include Web access for supervisors, physicians, and staff members; time-saving schedules to automatically send call recordings to an email address; convenient new search options; and VPN or FTP transfer of remote operator call recordings.

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

BenchmarkPortal Certifies McKesson Specialty's Call Center

McKesson Specialty's Marketing Services Call Center in, Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal and Purdue University' s Center for Customer-Driven Quality, a benchmarking organization for the call center industry.  The certification compares best practice metrics and is presented to centers that demonstrate the highest standards of efficiency and operational effectiveness.  To receive the award, a call center must place in the top ten percent of all call centers included in the database (currently more than 20,000).

McKesson Specialty's 600-seat facility provides programs to pharmaceutical manufacturers.  Their service representatives assist patients, physicians, and other medical professionals with a variety of educational, reimbursement, clinical, data gathering, and marketing services.

"Their streamlined operations ensure high quality at a low cost," said Dr. Jon Anton, Founder of Purdue University ' s Center for Customer Driven Quality.  "They also scored extremely high on the remaining benchmarking metrics, including attendance and new hire training."

"We are proud to join the ranks of such prestigious companies as Merrill Lynch, Delta Dental and Blue Cross/Blue Shield," said Lori Glover, Director, Call Center Operations, McKesson Specialty.

VLR Updates Website; Adds Features

VLR Communications has upgraded their e-commerce website, www.vlrcommunications.com, to include a host of new products and features making it a complete website for voice logging recorders, digital announcers, and conference bridges.  The new site presents installation and operation manuals for nearly every product they offer.  VLR has added Dees service observing systems and the new cost-effective Multisuns 8-port conference bridge.  The popular Total Recall recorder has been re-introduced to include a larger color screen with LAN and telephone access for playback.

Online manuals can also help installers and users become familiar with their new recorder before it arrives.  It includes manuals for the old TEAC CR-320 and Lanier LVL-20; they are PDF files, which can be simply printed on your computer.  VLR continues to repair those TEAC recorders, as well.  The updated website also features Power Point presentations to give decision makers a chance to select the features needed from the many recorders available on the site.

For more information, call 800-369-8273.

D'Ausilio Wants to "Wake Up Your Call Center"

As callers face longer waits, bad attitudes, and technology problems, company customer retention rates are negatively affected, leading to disaster in today ' s global economy.  "We have lots of talk covering technical information and training, software, hardware, new systems - a whole new language, in fact.  But what about the people?  They are too often dropped out of the picture as people, and I want to call this to your attention because we, the people, make the difference!" said Rosanne D ' Ausilio, President of Human Technologies in Carmel , NY .  She is also the author of Wake Up Your Call Center: Humanize Your Interaction Hub, now in its fourth edition.

In Wake Up Your Call Center, D'Ausilio outlines a program for change to verify "the human" as the key to all caller interactions by defining the training imperative as the focus to improving customer relationships and long-term corporate growth and success.  D'Ausilio is an industrial psychologist and consultant, holding a doctorate from California Coast University.  Over the last twenty years, she has provided needs analyses and customer-designed training to create profitable services.

1Call Offers Resource Library for Custom Scripts

The 1Call Division of Amtelco announced the introduction of the Amtelco Resource Library.  This Web-based library saves a significant amount of account set-up time for customers by allowing them to view scripts, download scripts, and then customize scripts to meet their specific needs.  Scripts are available for the Infinity Intelligent Messaging module, eCreator, and eCreator IVR (Interactive Voice Response).  To further simplify account setup, downloaded scripts may also include databases and reports.

Customers can browse through the various scripts to see unique ways to program accounts.  In addition, customers can add their own scripts to the Library to share with others.  This makes the library interactive, with new scripts being added by both Amtelco and customers.  The library includes easy instructions for submitting scripts, databases, and reports.  The library includes scripts for all types of applications, including general messaging calculations (age), medical messaging, prescription refills, insurance inquiries, patient placement, appointment taking, appointment reminders, physician referral, help desk, data collection/information requests, code calls, console calls, surveys, and more. 

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

PhoneScreen and American Mediconnect Celebrate 20 Years

PhoneScreen, a Chicago-based healthcare call center specializing in patient recruitment, retention, and compliance services for clinical trials, is joining with its sister company, American Mediconnect, to celebrate 20 years on the frontlines of healthcare communications.  PhoneScreen developed out of American Mediconnect, which was founded in 1985 as an answering service for hospitals, medical centers, physician practices, and clinics.  The two companies handle millions of calls annually and work in tandem to service all facets of the healthcare communications marketplace.

 "At PhoneScreen, we are able to meet the needs of pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotechnology companies because of our ongoing relationship with American Mediconnect," says Janet Lifshitz, President.  "What we learned from the early years of American Mediconnect is how best to communicate with patients and providers."

Thomson CenterWatch estimates that the call center market for patient recruitment has grown 80 percent in the last three years to $97 million.  CenterWatch further estimates that the pharmaceutical industry will need 20 million people to seek inclusion in clinical trials in 2005 − seven times the 2.8 million who responded to clinical trial promotions in 1999.

Calea Reduces Labor Costs with GMT Solution

GMT, a provider of workforce management solutions, announced results from their evaluation of GMT Planet's benefits to Calea , 's leading provider of home healthcare products, services, and patient support programs.  Since switching to the GMT Planet Workforce Management solution, Calea has seen a reduction in labor costs by 15 percent in their highly skilled medical contact center while improving customer service levels. 

"GMT offered the only workforce management solution that could actually help us to achieve our goal of providing the highest levels of support to all of our healthcare partners," said Ian LaFleur, Director of Operations for Calea.  "The ever-changing and vital nature of our clients' needs provides a real challenge for our contact center. GMT Planet consistently delivers incredible accuracy in both forecasting and scheduling for those needs."

BlueStream, GMT's exclusive reseller in Canada , facilitated the solution for Calea.

Beryl Acquires Call Center Service Agreements From FCG 

The Beryl Companies, a national health care-exclusive customer interaction center, has purchased the call center services agreements from Coactive Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of First Consulting Group (FCG).  The sale was completed February 2, 2005 .  Approximately 30 Coactive clients who contracted with the company for outsourced physician referral, health information, class registration, outbound marketing, and telephone nurse triage services will now be served by Beryl.

"We are excited to be able to complete this transaction that will expand our client base and our geographic reach across the country," said Paul Spiegelman, CEO of Beryl.  "This business acquisition is in line with our carefully planned future growth strategy.  We look forward to bringing Beryl's recognized customer service standards to these health care organizations and to the patients and the communities they serve."

Luther Nussbaum, Chairman and CEO of FCG said, "We approached Beryl, who, in our opinion, was in the best position to offer our call center service clients the highest level of quality service available in the industry today.  We are pleased that we have been able to complete this transaction."

"1Call Presents" at HIMSS

The 1Call Division of Amtelco attended the 2005 Annual HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) Conference and Exhibition, held February 13 to 17, 2005 in , .  Approximately 20,000 professionals, including 1,000 individuals from 49 countries outside the United States , attended HIMSS to view the latest technology in healthcare information and communications.

HIMSS attendees who visited the 1Call booth saw the ways 1Call helps streamline communications enterprise-wide.  "1Call Presents" theater presentations were held throughout the conference, often to standing-room-only crowds.  Here, attendees learned how to use 1Call's Rapid Emergency Deployment (R.E.D.) alert system to quickly notify personnel in emergency situations and for scheduled events, how to improve customer service with 1Call's Just Say It speech recognition module, and how the 1Call Infinity system can reduce errors and add enterprise-wide efficiency and productivity.  Attendees also received personal demonstrations of Infinity, R.E.D.  Alert, and Just Say It. 

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