Spotlight on: LVM Systems

It's time to celebrate!  LVM Systems, Inc. is reaching a milestone – its 20-year anniversary!  Throughout those years, LVM has grown to serve more than 200 clients – spanning from modest community referral centers to 100+ seat telehealth services that provide nurse advice for tens of millions of lives.  Ninety percent of LVM's new business comes from established call centers who realize a need to change their software vendor.  Understanding the company's success is a matter of considering how they differ from their competitors.  Here are the highlights.

Customization and Customer Service: When asked, "Why LVM?" call center managers mention these terms in their top reasons, and it appears the two are closely related.  LVM's software is designed specifically to support customization.  No two call centers are alike, and each customer's success is measured in how well the software tools supports their processes and business needs.  Customization is encouraged and actually built into the implementation process.  For call center staff, this means simplified screens with just the data fields and prompts they need.  Then, as call center services evolve, clients can continue to adjust their software to accommodate process improvements.

That's often where customer service comes into play.  The software is tested and dependable, so the company's support function is dedicated to delivering custom reports, surveys, and screen changes requested by clients.  Each client receives an additional monthly allotment of custom requests at no cost, which is a huge satisfier.

Outstanding customer service is designed into every aspect of the company's operations.  From sales, through implementation and training, to "go live" support, LVM anticipates and delivers the assistance essential to their clients' operational success.  The implementation process is proactive and thorough.  A custom implementation plan is developed to address each client's unique needs and timelines.

Beyond start-up, client services interfaces with LVM customers to understand their ongoing needs and new challenges and to engage any resources which might be helpful to them.

Focus: For all 20 years, LVM has focused exclusively on the healthcare call center industry with no distractions.  LVM is dedicated to the development of software and related solutions that support nurse triage, disease management, marketing/referral, and contact-centered services that contribute to efficient healthcare operations.

Product Enhancements: LVM's recent developments are a direct result of listening closely to their customers and industry leaders.  Call centers have recognized the need to be more mainstream, according to the functions of their organization.  Supporting access management with services such as patient transfers, physician consult lines, and behavioral health intake, facilitate capturing new patients, as well as better managing health system resources.

MPR, or Managing Physician Relations, has been another product enhancement to support the role of physician liaisons.  It has been described as "contact management on steroids."  The product supports the full cycle of physician relations activity: planning, executing, tracking, and integrating physician strategies to grow new physician referrals while retaining existing relationships.  It can be used as a stand-alone product or in conjunction with the call center for greater synergy.  For a demo, go to http://mpr.lvmsystems.com.

Cost containment drives additional product enhancements and offerings.  LVM's absence management module was a direct result of call centers wanting to assist their organizations in managing employee health, infection control, and employee satisfaction.  LVM customers also offer this service outside their own organizations to help manage employee populations for self-insured employers. 

TTR, the nickname for Patient Survey, Education, and Touch Tone Response, has received much notice from call centers who offer disease management services.  This new product is a fully integrated IVR (Interactive Voice Response) application which automates both inbound and outbound messaging to identified patients and consumers.  With TTR, call centers can send reminders, surveys, and educational messages to their customers, all without adding staff.  Conversely, the system can receive data from patients who initiate inbound contact.  Examples include CHF (Congestive Heart Failure) patients entering their daily weight or individuals with diabetes inputting blood sugar readings.  The license fee is often less than the cost of one FTE, so the return on investment is quite enticing.

LVM has developed access management modules within the Centaurus software and made them available at no additional cost.  Their customers appreciate LVM's pro-activity in identifying new call center opportunities and carefully developing streamlined solutions.

Clinical Integrity:  LVM collaborates with Doctors Barton Schmitt and David Thompson for use of their clinical protocols, the gold standard for triage in North America.  Triage nurses enjoy the content's quality and consistency across the spectrum of callers' ages.  The physicians maintain the same protocol structure and format, which results in improved ease-of-use for triagers.

If you ask nurse managers, their loyalty to Schmitt and Thompson goes beyond that.  They are impressed by the physicians' accessibility and personal response to their inquiries.  Both physician authors welcome questions and feedback from call center medical directors and managers.  They feel it's an important aspect of the usability of the content and factor it into each annual update.

Schmitt and Thompson have recently begun authoring Clinical Update for Telephone Triage Nurses, a monthly bulletin containing health information about hot media topics and changes to the triage content.  LVM distributes this information to their clients and posts it on their website at www.lvmsystems.com/bulletin.php.

Investment in the Industry:  Les Mortensen, president of LVM, is the first to admit that call center software is just a tool.  A call center's success depends on mastering many other factors: big-picture items such as market positioning, organizational alignment, and leadership, as well as day-to-day practices, from screening and hiring the right staff, developing sound policies and processes, and managing quality and productivity.  That's why LVM established and distributes the Dialogue newsletter.  It offers current information, practical tools, and the results of Question of the Month – a pulse of what call centers nationally are doing on a variety of issues.  It's an investment in the success of all healthcare call centers, regardless of the software product they use.  If you don't receive Dialogue newsletter, please register at www.lvmsystems.com/dialogue.php.

LVM's Solid Future.  Everyone at LVM would agree that the key to success is working in partnership with clients to understand and support their business issues.  Knowledge of which functions are needed to make life easier for managers and staff is what keeps the software, and LVM, on the cutting edge.  Product enhancements will continue to be a mainstay of the development team's activities.

Noteworthy is LVM's .NET platform: .Net-Centaurus (pronounced "dot net Centaurus"), the next generation call center solution.  It combines Microsoft's latest .Net platform with LVM's design to allow the software to be run anywhere: within a call center, on a single laptop, and/or by remote users.  It also increases the scalability from 1 to more than 250 concurrent users, whether they are decentralized, telecommuting, or all at one center. 

Its flexibility will be the main attraction.  For example, a center might have staff at a health fair, making referrals or processing risk assessments on stand-alone PCs and at the same time have 15 staff in the call center and another five working remotely from home via the Internet.  All would be using the same programs, screens, and data.  Individual users can run the software on a local PC at the central call center or on a remote PC using a secure, encrypted Internet connection.

The Ideal Choice:  LVM is committed exclusively to the healthcare call center industry.  They enjoy a reputation of trust, excellent product quality, service, and clinical content.  Leadership measures success through the eyes of their customers – one interaction at a time – yet focuses on the next solution that will keep call centers growing and vital.  For these reasons and more, LVM is the choice for more than 200 call centers and another 20+ new clients each year.

For more information about LVM Systems and its products, call 480-633-8200 x223, email info@lvmsystems.com, or visit www.lvmsystems.com.

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