Medical Call Center Industry News

October/November 2008

HealthLine Systems' Recognizes BJC HealthCare Call Center

HealthLine Systems, Inc. announced that its contact center Client Advisory Panel has selected BJC HealthCare Call Center as the 2008 recipient of the national Client Recognition Award.  This distinction recognizes contribution to a healthcare organization utilizing HealthLine Systems' contact center software solutions Sharp Focus® and EchoAccess™.  Criteria for selection include:

• Measurable financial impact,

• Interventions clearly related to the software, and

• Lessons learned to raise the standard of practice for the industry.

The University of Mississippi Health Care was recognized with honorable mention.

Previous Client Recognition Award recipients include distinguished healthcare leaders: Sharp HealthCare (2004), Emory HealthCare (2005), Georgetown University Hospital (2006), and Tenet Healthcare Call Center (2007).   

For more information, email RStier@HealthLineSystems.com.

RelayHealth's Extend Services to Create Patient-Centric Care Management

RelayHealth announced the general availability of its CareEnhance® Call Center (CECC) release 5.0.  CECC's newest release incorporates new workflow automation to extend beyond traditional call center services to track and monitor patients and analyze that captured data to create a patient-centric care management plan.  Healthcare professionals can use the care plans to better manage the ongoing needs of patients diagnosed with chronic conditions who require continuous care and provide health and wellness management to community and health plan members.

"CECC empowers care managers, wellness coaches, and nurses to establish a care plan integrated with call center encounters that guides them step-by-step through the delivery of care for various health conditions, including a personalized plan of action for each individual," said Kim Flores, vice president and general manager, RelayHealth Medical Management Systems.

For more information, call 800-778-6711.

Clinical Solutions Creates Brand to Extend Market Differentiation

Clinical Solutions announced the brand name of its core software that all products are built upon.  InteFleCS^TM is the core brand name for all Clinical Solutions products and supports the brand strategy going forward.

Commenting on the launch, Marce Colucci, head of marketing at Clinical Solutions, said that "InteFleCS reflects the characteristics of the business and suits our style and approach with the market - one that creates a unique identity that the market can easily relate to.  With our track record over the past six years, we feel this is a perfect platform to drive and develop our solutions in the future."

InteFleCS is a trademarked name and will be used in all collateral.  Each of Clinical Solutions' individual products will use the InteFleCS brand, including:

• InteFleCS Telephone Triage

• InteFleCS Face to Face

• InteFleCS Long Term Conditions/ Chronic Disease Management

• InteFleCS Web Service / Self Service

• InteFleCS Urgent Care

• InteFleCS Bio-Surveillance

Amcom Launches Next-Generation "Mass Notification 2.0" Solution

 Amcom Software has released Amcom e.Notify 4.5, a next-generation advance in mass notification and emergency management technology.  This release continues and expands on the company's platform of solutions for managing safety and health issues.  As mass notification has matured, organizations are finding that they need to surpass simple blast notifications and want new capabilities.

"Customers are telling us they want to do more than simply ‘ring the bell' to tell their employees, guests, patients, students, or response teams that there is a problem," said Amcom CEO Chris Heim.  "They need to know if the victim or caller is safe or in trouble.  They need a focused dialog with emergency teams to ensure situational awareness, coordinated response, and risk management.  They need to escalate and communicate in many different ways in order to make sure teams are handling assigned tasks via standardized procedures and are aware of dependencies.  This release of e.Notify takes the next step into ‘Mass Notification 2.0' to help connect everybody involved in managing an emergency so they can work quickly, with better information and coordination, to solve the problem at-hand."

For more information, call 800-852-8935. 

1Call Introduces Infinity IS Soft Agent

The 1Call division of Amtelco announced the new 1Call Infinity IS Soft Agent, which offers simplicity to improve operator and call center performance.  The key to the Infinity IS Soft Agent is the combination of built-in search and action capabilities of the Soft Agent Sandbox, combined with a straightforward, uncluttered screen.  With each keystroke, the intelligence of the Sandbox knows to either look up information or to call a number.  The Soft Agent Sandbox provides a single point of focus, saving time and eliminating errors for operators.

"The Infinity IS Soft Agent, using 1Call's Sandbox search technology, offers users new and powerful tools for call handling, as well as information access and sharing," according to President Tom Curtin.  "The Soft Agent uses industry standard protocols, including SIP, to integrate with PBXs and IP-based switches and gives healthcare call centers a more efficient way to handle calls throughout their enterprise."

For more information on the 1Call Infinity IS Soft Agent, call 800-356-9148 or email info@1call.com.

RelayHealth Receives EHNAC Reaccreditation

RelayHealth, a provider of healthcare connectivity services, has been re-accredited by the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC) for compliance with industry standards and best practices.  After an extensive evaluation of business practices and performing an onsite review, the EHNAC steering committee accredited RelayHealth with exceptional scores.

 To achieve EHNAC recertification, RelayHealth demonstrated a high-quality work environment in compliance with industry standards and best practices, which include organizational structure, staff qualifications, training and management, quality management, capacity management, and data protection.  The bi-annual accreditation process was completed in February, and full accreditation was given to all RelayHealth clearinghouse locations around the country.

RelayHealth operates as a neutral partner in an open network environment, offering connectivity solutions that work transparently with a variety of vendor partners.  "EHNAC accreditation is the hallmark of industry recognition," said Dave Mason, vice president and general manager of provider solutions, RelayHealth.  "We're proud to receive our seventh EHNAC recognition."

The EHNAC Commission seeks to accredit entities that send or receive HIPAA regulated transactions or that transport or process EDI transactions between two or more trading partners in the healthcare community.  For more information about RelayHealth, call 800-778-6711.

Hall to Focus on Healthcare Customer Service and Market Development at Beryl

The Beryl Companies has promoted Josh Hall to serve as its executive vice president overseeing sales, marketing, and product and account management.  Hall, a native of Tennessee, joined Beryl in 2006 as vice president of client services.

Hall will serve as a close advisor to Beryl's founder and CEO Paul Spiegelman and will continue to play a critical role on the leadership team.  With more than 20 years' experience in marketing and sales management, Hall is perfectly positioned to assist hospitals and other healthcare providers in ascertaining how they can provide exceptional customer service and build lasting customer relationships.

"Josh has a thorough understanding of the healthcare industry and the experience needed to analyze challenges and lead the development of key growth strategies and set industry service standards," said Spiegelman.  "In the past two years, Josh has developed great relationships with our hospital clients and has a proven track record of expert leadership and strategic development.

Metron Tracks Internet Bandwidth Usage for Call Centers and Agents

eTelemetry, Inc. released Metron, a network appliance that enables call centers to dynamically identify the bandwidth usage of a person, department, office, or campus, regardless of changing IP address or multiple PCs used by that person over time.  Metron is a plug-and-play solution that follows each person's bandwidth usage in real-time, including when a user changes computers or IP address.  Metron provides this capability without complex server software or PC-based software agents to install and maintain.  By identifying top bandwidth users by name, Metron allows call center and IT managers to track individual user's contiguous Web surfing and chatting time.

 "Until Metron, the tools to monitor bandwidth were IP-based," said Ermis Sfakiyanudis, CEO of eTelemetry.  "Metron identifies the anonymous bandwidth hog and contiguous Web surfer."  Additionally, personal identifying information is gathered even on people who are not registered users of the network.

For more information, call 888-266-6513.

Omega Sets Service Standards with "Customer Bill of Rights"

Organizations striving for excellence in customer satisfaction and loyalty now have a template to follow with Omega Management Group Corp's new Customer Bill of Rights.  Omega is a recognized expert in customer experience management strategies.

The Customer Bill of Rights is the result of research and analysis of global best practices in business-to-business customer service and support operations conducted this year through a Web survey of members of Omega's new View from the Top (VFT-500) Research Panel-500^SM program.  The new Customer Bill of Rights comprises ten articles that define best practices for organizations to use when interacting with customers and employees:

1.      Deliver quality products and services

2.      Provide a supportive workplace environment

3.      Reward employees for customer service excellence

4.      Appoint a senior customer advocate

5.      Measure levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty

6.      Report on customer satisfaction and loyalty

7.      Take corrective action where needed

8.      Benchmark performance within the industry

9.      Seek independent audit of customer service processes

10.  Conduct annual review of customer service processes

For more information on Omega and View from the Top-500 program, call 866-610-6700.

Amcom Software Introduces New WebXchange Platform

Amcom Software introduced Amcom WebXchange 7.0, the latest version of its platform for directory, paging, and on-call scheduling.  The new version of WebXchange features a completely redesigned user interface that takes all the functionality of earlier versions of WebXchange to new levels, making it easier for individuals across entire organizations to perform directory searches, send email and pager messages, and manage staff schedules.

Organizations with large staff scheduling challenges, such as those in the healthcare and hospitality industries, are quickly finding that a browser-based, self-service scheduling platform is the preferred alternative to sending "scratchpad scheduling" updates to already overloaded call centers.  "When customers try the online, calendar-format scheduling tools in WebXchange, we don't think they'll want to return to their old ways of handling things," said Amcom Product Manager Gerard Shallo.  "It's so much easier to manage schedules; they'll have a hard time believing they ever got along without it."

For more information, call 800-852-8935.

Call 4 Health Joins Spirit of Women Health Network

Call 4 Health has partnered with the Spirit of Women® Health Network, a national coalition of hospitals and healthcare providers joined together to improve women's health by inspiring access and action on local, regional, and national levels.  Joseph Pores, CEO, understands the challenges and stresses of dealing with life-threatening health situations.  He started the Call 4 Health 11 years ago after caring for his terminally ill mother. 

"While taking care of my mother, I realized that healthcare providers could dramatically improve patient care and satisfaction by centralizing all communications," said Pores.  "Spirit of Women and Call 4 Health share the same mission: inspiring patient access.  We look forward to making a difference through this partnership."

Perceived Lack of Quality Leads to Consumer Rating Websites

A website that has launched in response to growing concerns about healthcare quality and satisfaction in the U.S. is WhereToFindCare.com.  The site lets visitors share their experiences, research quality data, review other users' ratings, and contact providers directly.  The website is free for consumers to use, and its database includes more than 52,000 healthcare providers nationwide, such as hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, rehabilitation facilities and home care agencies. 

WhereToFindCare.com LLC supports free clinics by including them in their database at no cost and providing them free Premium Home Pages.  They also offer small hospitals a reduced rate on Premium Home Pages.

WhereToFindCare.com LLC is a Michigan-based startup that seeks to give power to the people in healthcare decision-making.

Amcom Software Receives Department of Defense Security Approval

Amcom Software received approval from the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) of the U.S. Department of Defense for their communications software suite.  By achieving JITC approval, Amcom's Smart Center, Smart Console, Computer-Telephony Integration (CTI), Smart Web, Smart Speech, and e.Notify applications have been shown to provide the highest levels of Information Assurance (IA) security as required by the U.S. government and military.

"This is great news for Amcom and for all our customers," said Greg Stinson, Amcom vice president of development.  "No other provider can match our extensive range of applications with government-approved security and interoperability."  To qualify for JITC and IA approval, Amcom Software completed rigorous federal government testing and compliance processes under real-life conditions.

"We're thrilled to have again achieved this high level approval." said Chris Heim, Amcom CEO.  "We view JITC and IA approval as a key way to prove our capabilities to all our customers, both inside and outside the government."

For more information, call 800-852-8935.