How to build one command centre for patient traffic, with four locations across the country?
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“By implementing the Medidesk app in our medical facilities, we have not only gained more patients, but more importantly, we have improved communication and call handling.”
Dr Paweł Radwan, MD
CEO of Gameta Hospital
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We have been able to improve the handling of requests and communication
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Thanks to Medidesk, the number of our patients has increased
Thanks to Medidesk,
we were able to achieve:
Waiting time to
speak to registration.
The increase in the number
of incoming calls.
THE CUSTOMER
Gameta is a leader in providing infertility treatment in Poland and the largest infertility treatment centre in Europe.
Gameta is a network of modern infertility treatment facilities, which has its clinics in four locations throughout Poland: in Rzgow, Warsaw, Gdynia and in the Regional Science and Technology Park in Chęciny.
The founder of the centre is Professor Jerzy Radwan, a member of the team responsible for the birth of the first child conceived in Poland using the in vitro method.
The laboratories of Gameta centres are equipped with the highest quality equipment, which allows them to provide comprehensive treatment of patients, from diagnosis to the preparation of a treatment plan.
THE CHALLENGE
Construction of a single patient command centre at four locations across Poland.
Gameta is a network of centres with four locations in Poland. The most distant clinics within the network are separated by approximately 200-350 km. The largest facility is located near Łódź. This created a number of communication challenges for both patients and staff.
The first challenge was the multitude and variety of telephone exchanges and operators serving the clinics.
Another was the different medical systems on which the Gameta-owned facilities worked.
Some of the work of the facilities was based on a browser-based system, which can be accessed from a web browser after logging in, and some was based on a fixed, licence-based system, which could only be used by working on selected workstations in a particular facility.
ANALYSIS
Identifying the problems of the medical facility
through testing and expertise
The first ‘Mystery Patient Drills’ carried out by Medidesk experts, which verify the quality of the centres’ registration work, showed that only one facility – in Rzgów – was functioning efficiently.
In the other three, we diagnosed problems in the form of, among other things, long waiting times for patients to connect and a lack of feedback from patients who did not reach the facilities.
Example of a problem
The patient tried to call facility A, which had three telephones and ten different telephone numbers. By calling all the telephone numbers listed, a maximum of three patients at any one time were able to successfully call the facility.
Each additional one was ‘rejected’ by hearing a busy signal on the phone line. A patient wishing to make an appointment would call again – until he or she was successful – thus hindering other patients’ ability to register with the doctor. The waiting time for the registration call was then up to 15 minutes.
Medidesk specialists, together with the facility’s management,
set goals to address the above issues, which included:
Improving communication between facilities and patients and facilities and departments
Technological streamlining of all
locations
Centralisation of all locations for telephone traffic
Introducing modern communication solutions, including the ability to call back missed phone calls.
Reduction of costs associated with the services of Internet and telephone service providers
SOLUTION NO. 1
Implementation of Medidesk application
with VoIP technology
SOLUTION NO. 2
Setting consistent standards
for registration work
We started our remediation efforts with the facility in most urgent need of support and change, which is in Gdynia. Together with the management and the individual team leaders, the Medidesk team implemented a process of unification of telephone numbers.
We identified all existing numbers that needed to be transferred to one operator and assigned to one main number.
Medidesk experts set up a call centre in the largest facility in central Poland near Łódź . The selected registrar was moved from the reception desk to a position only to answer calls from calling patients and to return missed calls.
The process of calling a specific facility was as follows: A patient calling a facility in Gdynia would reach the registrar manning the call centre at the main office. This was a person dedicated solely to answering the phone, providing information and signing patients up for appointments She did not handle patients on site.
With the implementation of the Medidesk app, phone calls started to be assigned and displayed under specific names. The registrar knew even before the phone call was answered where specifically the patient wanted to call.
When the line at the call centre was busy, the patient’s call was automatically redirected to the destination location, in this case Tricity. A phone call directly in Gdynia was a signal to the registrars serving patients on site that the caller was a patient who had not reached the call centre and that the call should be answered as quickly as possible. Calls were transferred to the individual telephones in the registration to the first available person.
Patient calls the facility in Gdynia
The phone rings at a call center in Rzgow
Call received
Missed call
Phone rings
at the registration in Gdynia
Dedicating a person to handle phone calls exclusively has allowed other team members in other locations to carry out registration duties efficiently, enabled efficient management of all incoming and outgoing phone traffic, and reduced the number of missed calls.
By implementing VoIP internet telephony at the sites, we have reduced the amount of costs previously incurred by 4 different telephone exchanges and service providers and centralised services to a single location that can be contacted in the event of technical problems or configuration changes.
The streamlining of the telephone exchanges of all outlets allowed Gameta’s management to view and analyse the statistics of all telephone traffic during the registration hours of all locations, as well as to verify the effectiveness in selling the medical services of its employees.
RESULTS
What has been achieved by
The introduction of Medidesk solutions?
Number of calls received during April-May 2019 before and after implementation of VoIP telephony to the first location.
A so-called ‘mystery patient drill” carried out by Medidesk specialists prior to the start of the collaboration showed that only 15 % of all phone calls made by patients to the facility in Gdynia are answered.
In April 2019, the number of calls answered was 764.
One month after the implementation of VoIP telephony, as well as the posting of one person to answer the phones, the number of calls answered in May 2019 was 5055. This represents an increase of 76 percentage points.
April 2019
May 2019
Callbacks for missed calls during March-May 2019.
After introducing VoIP telephony to a facility that struggles with missed phone calls, it allows them to analyse them and, above all, call them back.
With 718 missed calls and disconnections on announcements, the registration called back 64% of them, of which 53% were successful – a conversation with a potential patient. This means that the facility recovered 244 patients.
(64%)
(53%)
Patient waiting time to connect phone call to registration for March-May 2019.
The ‘Mystery patient drills’ also showed that the waiting time for the facility’s registrar to answer a telephone call for 23% of all incoming calls was more than 2 minutes, with the longest recorded wait being as long as 16 minutes.
The introduction of VoIP internet telephony to the facility reduced call waiting times for more than half of the calls 59% to 5 sec.
March 2019
May 2019
Incoming calls vs. number of calls received in June-November 2019.
Thanks to the use of VoIP technology and the solution of a dedicated call centre at the main location in June 2019 with 2554 incoming calls, the answer rate was 91% which means that 9 out of 10 patients called the facility’s registration in the first place. After the implementation of further locations and thus an increase in the volume of all incoming calls to the call centre by almost 300%, the decrease in answerability was only 4%, which for such an increase is a very good result.
The training carried out with Medidesk experts on introducing good standards for calling patients back and having effective and efficient conversations with patients resulted in an increase of almost 300% in the number of incoming calls and at the same time resulted in only a 4% decrease in answerability, which for such an increase is a very good result.
June 2019
November 2019
SUMMARY
What has been achieved by
the implementation of Medidesk solutions?
Significant increase in the number of calls answered and callbacks
Increase in appointments and new patients
Increase in facility revenue and customer satisfaction