After-hours Emergency Contact Management

Overview

MediLink Homecare Inc, a leading infusion therapy service provider servicing the whole state of New Jersey, required a cost-effective way to interface with emergency and routine patient calls after-hours. Like most of the home care industry, MediLink Homecare used a live operator answering service but was dissatisfied with their service. MediLink Homecare required an answering service that would answer all incoming calls on first-ring reliably, stratify calls based on the level of emergency, and notify on-call technicians immediately and without fail. A joint solution from Lance Technologies and its sister company MDCall Inc, provided MediLink Homecare with an interactive voice response system that handled all calls and a web-based administration end that allowed the company to manage on-call schedules and staff contact numbers, monitor call handling details, and listen to web-based archives of all incoming messages in real-time.

Situation

An after-hours answering service is a basic requirement in the healthcare industry and constitutes a substantial monthly expense. Unfortunately, answering services are traditionally live operator outfits that rely on highly overworked people without medical experience to handle calls. As the complexity of call handling instructions increases, the more error-prone live operators are. Like many healthcare organizations, MediLink Homecare was suffering from the same problems. Calls were not being paged out immediately in emergency situations or there were numerous errors in who was called. MediLink Homecare wanted reliable after-hours answering with detailed call handling information for increased transparency and accountability.

Solution

Lance Technologies, in conjunction with its sister company, MDCall Inc., evaluated MediLink Homecare's call traffic patterns and created a multi-port custom interactive voice response (IVR) system running on a dedicated Windows 2000 server that would reliably answer callers on first-ring. Based on the evaluation of MediLink Homecare's call handling process, a call flow was developed that assisted patients calling in to stratify calls appropriately. Based on the type of call, the IVR system either patched the patient directly to the on-call technician or allowed patients to leave a message and paged out the technician on their cellular phone.

Call escalation procedures enabled the system to make sure a patient call did not go unaddressed. The IVR system kept track of messages that have not been picked up and paged the technician multiple times with that information. If the message was not picked up in over 10 minutes, it called the technician's cellular phone. If that failed, the system then called the on-call supervisor's phone.

A web-based administrative system allowed MediLink Homecare's employees to log in securely and manage on-call schedules and technician contact information in real-time, providing instant and significant control not possible with live operator services. Furthermore, employees could also see call logs that detailed what calls came in, how they were handled by the system, who was paged out, and how calls were escalated. The web-based system also included an audio archive of all recorded messages. Such a robust reporting system not only allowed MediLink Homecare to analyze call data for process improvement but also provided instant information that could be used to provide better customer service and accountability.