Medical Call Center Industry News

February 2005

Children's Physician Network Schedules 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."  This is 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 , , conveniently located close to the Mall of America and Paul International Airport .

The conference will feature nationally renowned speakers, including Andrew Hertz, MD, from Cincinnati Children's Hospital; Sandy Melzer, MD, from Seattle Children's Hospital and current chair of the AAP's section on telephone care; and Dipti Amin, MD, Medical Director of the Call Center at All Children's Hospital, St. Petersburg, FL.  Steven Poole, MD, telephone triage expert and author from Denver Children's Hospital will also be back, in response to popular demand.

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.

Nickerson Releases Call Center Book: Not By the Seat of My Pants

Nationally recognized Call Center authority, Anne Nickerson, shares her years of experience and lessons learned in her recently released book, Not By the Seat of My Pants.  The book was specifically written for supervisors and managers in the call center industry.

Ms. Nickerson provides call center leaders, managers, and new supervisors an inside look at the interplay of roles, goals, and changing expectations that can thwart the effort of even the most qualified candidates.  Through tips, techniques, tools, and practical examples, Ms. Nickerson's book helps the reader identify what it really takes to be successful in this high pressure, high stress, high turnover job, and how to create the environment for enthusiastic, productive, satisfied employees.

"This creative book is enjoyable to read, easy to digest and loaded with wisdom and insight for supervisors, new and old.  Bravo!" commented, President and CEO of Incoming Calls Management Institute (ICMI), Brad Cleveland.

For more information, review copy, or an interview with the author, please contact Susan Douglas, Solomark Associates, at 847-895-2634 or sm_douglas@solomark.com.

Amtelco Receives NEC Certification for RED Alert

The 1Call Division of Amtelco announced that Amtelco has received certification for the 1Call Rapid Emergency Deployment (RED) Alert system with the NEC NEAX 2400 IPX.  Amtelco is a member of the NEC Fusion Strategic Alliance Program.

RED Alert gives healthcare organizations a fast method for notifying and communicating with the appropriate personnel in disaster and emergency situations, as well as for routine notification needs.  1Call's RED Alert saves times for healthcare staff, reduces errors, and speeds the organization's overall response time.

Notification plans are entered into RED Alert in advance and can then be quickly activated for external disasters that affect the community, internal disasters that affect the healthcare organization, and routine notification needs.  The designated personnel can automatically be notified by pager, wireless message, fax, or automated callouts with a prerecorded or text-to-speech message.

Using the 1Call Bridge , personnel can be conferenced together with or without operator assistance.  The Conference Bridge allows for multiple simultaneous conference calls, which can also be recorded for ongoing communications and historical accuracy.

For more information on RED Alert and the NEC certification, contact 1Call at 800-356-9148 or info@1call.com.

Beryl Issues White Paper on Measuring Hospital Marketing Efficacy

The Beryl Companies has released a white paper that examines the need for hospitals to objectively measure the effectiveness of their marketing investments.  The document examines trends and discusses the central role the hospital's call center plays in gathering specific demographic information on each caller that can then be used to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for individual marketing initiatives.

"One of the greatest challenges that has historically confronted hospitals of all sizes and sponsorships is how to measure the ROI of their marketing efforts," said Paul Spiegelman, CEO of Beryl.  "In today's competitive environment, measuring ROI has become an essential and expected part of the marketing discipline."

The white paper is a result of Beryl's experience of working with more than 500 healthcare organizations and responding to more than 15 million callers and more than one million Internet users.  The document includes information derived from studies conducted by some of Beryl's strategic partners including The Strategy Group and Solucient, LLP. 

For a copy of the white paper, "Understanding the Importance of Accountability for Hospital Marketing Investments," contact Beryl at 817-770-8003 or beryl@beryl.net.

Christus Santa Rosa Primary Carenet Acquired

Christus Santa Rosa Primary Carenet has been recently acquired by former West Telemarketing executive John Erwin.  Carenet is a 15-year-old San Antonio-based medical call center serving hospitals, insurance companies, and government agencies.  Carenet helps organizations lower costs by outsourcing clinical and marketing services, allowing clients to increase the convenience and quality of services they provide to their patients.

"Many health care providers and insurance companies are turning to medical call to assist patients with their overall health," said John Erwin, Carenet president and CEO.  "Carenet lightens the burden by proving 24/7 custom-branded clinical services, including nurse triage, emergency intervention, and post discharge follow up.  Carenet allows organizations to more effectively manage patient relationships while facilitating timely access to patient care and information."

Carenet has retained all of the employees and medical staff previously employed by Christus Santa Rosa.  The company plans to further expand its disease management and telemedicine services.  Carenet President and CEO John Erwin has been in the call center business for more than 20 years.  Prior to acquiring Carenet, he founded and was president of West Teleservices Direct.

For more information, call 210-475-7100.

Amtelco Receives NEC Certification for Infinity

The 1Call Division of Amtelco is pleased to announce that Amtelco has received certification for the 1Call Infinity Intelligent Console system with the NEC NEAX 2400 IPX.  Amtelco is a member of the NEC Fusion Strategic Alliance Program.

The integration with Infinity and the NEC NEAX uses the Amtelco XDS T1/E1 PRI ISDN board, which can accommodate either four or eight spans for up to 191 ports on a single board.  This board supports the Q Signaling Interface Protocol (QSIG), allowing it to integrate with QSIG-compatible switches, such as the NEC NEAX 2400 IPX.

The 1Call Infinity Intelligent Console provides Attendant Console functions, allowing operators to answer incoming calls with identity, transfer to PBX extensions, conference incoming calls, initiate dial outs to internal extensions and outside trunks, as well as initiate dial outs to feature access codes for functions such as overhead paging and call parking.  Infinity uses ISDN QSIG connections to offer high port volumes, very fast call processing, and sophisticated features to enhance enterprise-wide communications with on-call scheduling, directories, physician answering service and messaging, appointment scheduling, class registration, registry/roster, and call logging and recording.

For more information on Infinity, and the NEC certification, contact 1Call at 800-356-9148 or info@1call.com.

Shield Healthcare Uses Integrated System from Onyx and Interactive Intelligence

Onyx® Software and Interactive Intelligence Inc. announced that Shield Healthcare, a provider of disposable medical products and services for home healthcare, is using Onyx Enterprise CRM and Interactive Intelligence's Customer Interaction Center® (CIC) for its new contact center initiative.  It allows Shield to identify and monitor service levels to ensure that the right supplies get to the right people at the right time.  The system is part of Shield's efforts to meet regulatory compliance standards and adapt to the frequent changes in processing requirements.

"In healthcare, the rules of compliance are complex, which creates a steep learning curve for our customer service agents," said Brian Choynake, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Shield Healthcare.  "The integrated solution from Onyx and Interactive Intelligence takes out much of the reliance on knowledge, and makes the process more efficient for our agents.  At the same time, it provides a mechanism for capturing the information necessary to meet the standards set by industry regulators."

Methodist Hospitals in Northwest Indiana to Call Center

Methodist Hospitals have announced plans to begin a customer interaction center to serve the healthcare needs of the residents of Northwest Indiana .  The initiative will include a call center providing physician referral service, health information and resources, and class registration.  The hospitals have selected The Beryl Companies, the nation's largest healthcare exclusive customer interaction center, to help with design and implementation.

"We are excited about bringing this valuable service to the communities we serve," says Tom Kruse, Vice President of Strategy and Information Services for Methodist Hospitals.  "Building such an endeavor from the ground up requires the expertise that The Beryl Companies offers.  Providing timely and accurate information about our physicians and our services is our goal."

"We don't often have a chance to work side-by-side with our clients to launch a completely new service," says Paul Spiegelman, CEO of Beryl.  "We are confident that the new customer interaction center will enhance the well-being of the residents of their service area."

8x8 Selects IEX for Workforce Management

8x8 Inc. has selected IEX Corporation's TotalView® Workforce Management Small Center (SC) system.  TotalView SC will help 8x8, a provider of Internet-based telephony solutions, optimize customer service by providing call forecasts and producing efficient agent schedules. 

"We're experiencing high growth in our contact center call volumes," said Richard Murray, Director of Customer Service for 8x8.  "In order to keep-pace with business demands, we needed a workforce management system that could help us better forecast our call volumes and plan our schedules.  Having used TotalView and competing systems in the past, I knew TotalView was the right choice."

TotalView SC delivers workforce management functionality in a package designed to meet the needs of smaller contact center operations.  It provides contact center managers the tools they need to improve service while lowering costs and allowing employees more control over their work assignments.  Features include workforce forecasting, scheduling, adherence monitoring, intra-day management, productivity analysis, reporting, and long-term planning.  TotalView SC makes it easier for contact centers to provide the service experience their customers expect.

Three Healthcare Organizations Select 1Call

The 1Call Division of Amtelco announced that several additional healthcare organizations have selected 1Call systems to streamline their enterprise-wide communications.  They include:

• Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale , AZ

• Phoenix Children's Hospital in Phoenix ,

• Jackson Hospital in , AL

These healthcare organizations will use 1Call Infinity systems to provide the specific communication services they need.  Services include intelligent console applications, physician answering service and messaging, on-call scheduling, enterprise-wide directories, and paging.

For more information on the 1Call Infinity system and all of the 1Call solutions, contact 1Call at 800-356-9148 or info@1call.com.

Events Help Organizations Deliver World-Class Service and Support

Service Strategies Corporation announced the 2005 SCP Development Roundtable and Certification Showcase schedule: February 23-25, Las Vegas, NV; April 27-28, Sydney, Australia; May 25-26, London, UK; June 21-23, Boston, MA; September 20-21, Munich, Germany; and November 1-3, San Francisco, CA. Service Strategies Corporation is the administrator of the Support Center Practices (SCP) Certification program, an international service quality standard.

The development roundtables offer opportunities for representatives from SCP Certified organizations and SCP sponsor companies to provide input into the evolution of the standard.  The one-day SCP development sessions are followed by one-day Certification Showcase events.  These events include best practice presentations from SCP Certified support organizations.  Additionally, in-depth discussions of the challenges that presenters and attendees face in their quest to implement best practices and achieve industry standard certification are held between presentations.

The SCP Certification program defines best practices for delivering world-class technology support.  SCP Certification requires comprehensive on-site audits to confirm that companies meet the requirements of the over 100 business elements defined in the program.  Certified organizations must demonstrate their continued commitment to high performance standards through annual re-certification audits.

For more information, call 800-552-3058.