AnswerStat Industry News

February/March 2007

1Call Offers Message Confirmation

With today's new PDA smartphones and the use of alpha paging, physicians can often get all of the information they need without speaking to an agent.  The 1Call Division of Amtelco is pleased to announce two Infinity features that confirm physicians have received their messages:  page confirmation and email confirmation.  With these features, Infinity sends unique confirmation numbers with each page or email message.  When physicians call in (for pages) and enter the unique ID, or reply to an email, the message history is updated to show the message is confirmed, and the message is marked delivered.  If a message is not confirmed within a predetermined amount of time, or the physician declines the message, it returns to an operator as a failed page confirmation or failed email confirmation, so further action can be taken.

These Infinity features save time for agents and physicians by allowing Infinity to monitor the message confirmation process, and they also ensure all messages reach their intended recipient.

For more information on the Infinity page confirmation and email confirmation features, contact 1Call at 800-356-9148 or email info@1call.com,

TouchStar Enhances Client Support Services

TouchStar completed a six-month strategic re-engineering project.  Steve Bederman, CEO of TouchStar, led the project to establish an infrastructure that supports future growth.  The entire management team participated in the project and made significant changes to TouchStar's business processes, management structure, and education programs.

TouchStar has expanded rapidly over the last four years, and the growth will continue through new sales and the acquisition of competitors.  TouchStar's goal is to serve clients with integrity, passion, relentless effort, and sound processes. 

The first phase of the project was to review all business processes and identify all points of improvement.  The second step involved re-evaluating the management and labor resources in the Client Support Services Division.  TouchStar added resources and identified the metrics required to match labor resources with future growth.  The final component was to re-design internal education and certification requirements. 

The re-engineering project has reduced the amount of customer calls into the technical support call center and has significantly reduced the response time to resolve support cases.

TouchStar is a developer of call center technology.

CPN Announces 4th Annual National Pediatric Telehealth Conference

Children's Physician Network (CPN) announced the dates of the 2007 National Pediatric Telehealth Conference "Reach for the Stars," September 27-29, 2007.  All plenary and breakout sessions will be held at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport Hilton Hotel in Bloomington, MN.  The hotel is conveniently located near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis, MN.  Complimentary transportation is available to and from the airport and the mall. 

The Hiawatha Line (light rail) station is within walking distance for convenient and inexpensive travel to beautiful downtown Minneapolis.  Also, a protected national waterway and wildlife refuge is literally steps away, with plenty of miles of trails overlooking the Mississippi and Minnesota River valleys.

The conference is for an audience of clinic office and call center triage nurses, physicians, and administrators.  Further details concerning topics and nationally known speakers will be announced soon.

CPN is a Minnesota non-profit organization and is affiliated with Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota.

Fone 4 Health Introduces Combined Answering Service & Triage

Fonemed Medical call centers and Call 4 Health Medical Answering Service introduce Fone 4 Health, a complete solution for handling physician after-hours calls.  The Fone 4 Health partners have seen the growing need for a single service to provide the after-hours extension for medical practices.  Now it is possible for a physician to direct incoming calls to a single number and receive:

• Medical answering service
• Accredited medical advice and triage by RNs
• Individual Nurse Encounter reports
• One monthly bill
• Optional scheduling and referral services  

"We are excited about the ability of Call4Health to filter after-hours calls to physician officers so that they handle administrative matters and only clinical calls reach our Registered Nurses," observed Ken Bleakley, President of Fonemed.

Joseph Pores, President of Call 4 Health, noted that "Fonemed's ability to provide reliable clinical advice to callers is just what we needed to assure physicians that all their calls will receive the attention they deserve and is appropriate to each patient"

Telecorp Products Acquires blueButler iDR Distributorship in US

Telecorp Products Inc., a 22-year veteran in call center management software and display technologies, announced its partnership with Blue C 802, provider of digital call recording and unified communications software for call centers.

This technology makes call recording accessible to small and medium-sized call centers that can start with just one call recording extension and scale up to centralized recording as needs expand.  There is no requirement for expensive CTI integration and no hidden costs.  The blueButler applications are software-based and do not require the re-programming of communications equipment.  With blueButler's advanced MP3 compression technology, there are minimal requirements for ACD and file storage.

In addition, blueButler delivers real-time monitoring and data mining capability.  As an example, a hospital which has outsourced their customer support operations can now use the module for live monitoring of service provided by the outsourcer to their customers.

For more information about Telecorp Products Inc., call 800‑634‑1012.

Alaska's Tobacco Quit Line Helps Users Quit

Alaska's Tobacco Quit Line showed extraordinary progress in helping users quit.  In 2005, 41 percent of smokers and 30 percent of smokeless tobacco users successfully stopped using tobacco according to a survey by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.  In comparison, Washington, New York, and Oregon quit lines experienced cessation rates of 21 to 35 percent.  The rate for those attempting to quit on their own is 3 to 4 percent.

"Nicotine patches offered as a part of the service have been found to increase program effectiveness up to eight times, motivating callers to remain in counseling, and providing greater support in combating nicotine addiction," said Tari O'Connor, Tobacco Prevention and Control program acting manager.  Studies show that tobacco quit lines have effective at promoting tobacco cessation for large numbers of people, including diverse and underserved populations, helping to diminish health disparities.

Alaska's quit line was activated in 2002 to reduce the state's high tobacco use rate.  The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services contracted with Providence Alaska Medical Center to manage the quit line services. 

Call the Alaska Tobacco Quit Line at 888-842-7848.

Telehealth Nursing Standards Due in March

The American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing (AAACN) announced that its anticipated 2007 Edition of the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing Telehealth Nursing Practice Administration and Practice Standards is due out in March, 2007. 

The AAACN views telehealth nursing as a sub-specialty within ambulatory care nursing.  They state that Telehealth Nursing Practice uses the nursing process to provide nursing care and access to health care for individual patients or patient populations over the telephone.  Telehealth Nursing Practice occurs in multiple health care settings and uses defined criteria.  This includes:

• The use of clinical algorithms, protocols, or guidelines to systematically assess patient needs and symptoms
• The prioritization of the urgency of patient needs
• The collaborative development of the plan of care with the patient and supportive disciplines, which may include recommendations for care, call back instructions, and education
• Outcome evaluation

For more information, call 800-262-6877.

Assurant Call Center Earns Recognition

The Dental Claims Call Center of Assurant Employee Benefits was recently named first runner-up from a field of more than 30 entries in the 2006 "Best in Class" competition of Call Center IQ's Call Center Excellence Awards.

Aligned with Assurant Employee Benefits' corporate strategy of being easy to do business with, the Dental Claims Call Center has adopted several tactics that set it apart from competitors, such as cross-training all employees to meet a variety of customer needs, and melding work from three individual call centers into one pool to provide more rapid and consistent customer service.

"We're committed to providing service beyond the expected level to make using our coverage easy for our members and providers," said Sue Lundberg, Vice President of Dental Claims at Assurant Employee Benefits.  The Dental Claims Call Center was recognized for significant achievements in customer service.

Patricia Hennessy Joins Beryl

The Beryl Companies has hired healthcare marketing veteran Patricia Hennessy as Vice President of Customer Relations.  In this newly created position, she will serve as a strategic resource for Beryl's clients in supporting their marketing and business objectives.  Hennessy brings to Beryl nearly 25 years of experience in healthcare marketing, strategic planning, administration, and call center management.

"We are pleased to have someone with Patricia's expertise and hands-on knowledge on our executive leadership team," said Tom Panion, Beryl's Chief Customer Officer.  "Her role is to provide the best possible strategic support to our clients and to align our services with their organizations goals and objectives."

GeigerBevolo to Provide Marketing Services to Children's Hospitals of Minnesota

GeigerBevolo, Inc. has been hired to provide healthcare marketing services for Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota.  With 326 staffed hospital beds and services available in all major pediatric specialties, Children's is the largest children's healthcare organization in the upper Midwest, and the eighth largest in the United States.  While its staff serves thousands of the region's sick children each year, they also strive to keep children well and to prevent illness and injury.

"We're looking forward to creating innovative marketing initiatives to share our family-centered approach with those most in need of highly-specialized pediatric care," said Mark Heymans, Children's Director of Communications and Public Relations.

"We're thrilled to engage one of the most vibrant healthcare organizations in Minnesota," added Chris Bevolo, partner and Director of Client Strategy at GeigerBevolo.

Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota is a not-for-profit, comprehensive health care provider serving the diverse needs of children from infancy through adolescence.

For more information on GeigerBevolo, visit www.geigerbevolo.com, call 612-672-9842, or email chris@geigerbevolo.com.