Call Accounting Featured Article

UC Solutions Hold the Key to Improved Patient Care

  By Laura Stotler, TMCnet Contributing Editor

Patient care is a complex area based on privacy restrictions and mandates, the time constraints and productivity deadlines surrounding dealing with urgent care and the inherent communication challenges of interacting with patients/customers. Most healthcare providers are interested in improving patient care on all fronts and are looking for low cost and low maintenance ways to better interact with their patients.

In many cases, providers already have some type of unified communications (UC) solution or service in place to handle collaboration needs and satisfy compliance requirements. But what many providers fail to realize, according to ISI (News - Alert) Telemanagement Solutions, which specializes in UC management solutions, is that already installed UC offerings can be a major asset for increasing both employee and patient engagement and satisfaction.

ISI works with a healthcare provider comprised of a system of urgent care and physician clinics and a network of more than 300 physicians. The organization was interested in using its contact center recording solution to gain better visibility into the entire patient care lifecycle, from pre-registration through to release and subsequent follow-up care.

The provider deployed ISI’s recording solution with the Verba and Ethical Wall solutions and was able to make use of recorded interactions to help improve their customer service as well as redesign the employee communications process. The organization was able to maintain HIPAA compliance throughout the process, and also incorporated the Infortel Select solution with Enhanced UCCX reporting for monitoring all contact center communications. The end result was an improved and streamlined communications process and an ultimate reduction in patient re-admissions.

The healthcare provider had also previously invested in an IM system for both internal and external communications, but the offering became cumbersome and costly to manage so it was ultimately unpopular among end users. ISI took charge of the situation by installing and deploying their Verba Compliance Recording and Ethical Wall solution on the provider’s existing communications platform, which included Cisco’s (News - Alert) Jabber communications solution. Already compatible with the Ethical Wall offering, Jabber was easily managed via content filtering, redaction and session blocking, maintaining compliance and ease of use for IM communications.

UC solutions are the key to better internal and external communications for healthcare providers, along with improved patient care. And utilizing all aspects of a UC offering while maintaining compliance and ease of use doesn’t have to be a chore. With the proper tools, healthcare providers can get the most value out of their UC offerings and deliver better and more consistent patient care.