Consumer-governed, non-profit health care system
Group Health Cooperative has reportedly selected
Avaya contact center solutions to achieve greater efficiencies and faster service in their patient service operations.
The company serves more than 600,000 people in Washington State and Idaho, and with Avaya contact center solutions, it expects to deliver better health care service.
According to a press release, the deployment of an Avaya Communication Manager IP telephony platform enabled Group Health to reduce the time it takes to resolve client issues by approximately 90 percent. Company officials called this a “significant achievement.” Prior to the deployment, it could take around nine hours to resolve patient issues through multiple phone calls.
Company officials said that this was due to the previous system’s inability to route information quickly and appropriately to the right resource. The company recognized the need to improve speed to service and first call resolutions.
Thanks to Avaya’s contact center solutions, Group Health officials said that they were able to enhance their routing capabilities and increase first call resolution of patient problems from 7 percent to 72 percent, compared to the prior year.
With the help of Avaya and Platinum partner NACR, the company targeted three key areas -- improving call routing and first call resolution; computer telephony integration to enable screen pops of patient records; and medication adherence and disease management. Moreover, NACR also developed applications for the platform that would address needs specific to Group Health’s business.
Asking how many people have their physician actually answer the phone when they call their clinic, Ernie Hood, chief information officer at Group Health, said that at Group Health this is becoming an every day occurrence made possible by this technology and the result is better care for the patient and less time wasted on phone tag.
Additionally, the company has also deployed Avaya Voice Portal, enabling patients to connect directly with their personal care teams. Serving as the umbrella application, Avaya Voice Portal allows for self-service and automation of call inquiries, and provides customers with expected wait times and their queue position.
Company officials said that Avaya Voice Portal will play a key role in a new application underway at Group Health, providing automated, proactive medication-refill notification calls to patients in at-risk groups such as HIV, cardiovascular, and diabetes. Also, in the future, the program may be extended to all patients who order their medications through Group Health.
The Avaya applications, systems and services used by Group Health are Avaya Communication Manager; Avaya media servers and gateways; LSP servers; Avaya Call Center Elite software; Avaya Modular Messaging; Avaya Voice Portal with Dialog Designer; Avaya Contact Center Express; and more.
