Anywhere365 Healthcare Solution

Future dialogue

DialogueCommunications technology are critical in healthcare today, which is no longer confined to hospitals but extends to wherever healthcare professionals and patients happen to be. The growing public acceptance and distribution of new communication tools such as smart mobile phones needs healthcare to look at future demands of ICT-supported doctor-patient communication. These days you need a flexible communications platform, which is prepared for the ICT communications of tomorrow. Are you ready for the future dialogue?

Anywhere365 offers a large variety on difference dialogues, including the basic audio and chat. In addition it offers the possibility to adapt to more dialogues in the future. Implementing Anywhere365 in the healthcare sector gives you a powerful tool to improve the patient – doctor relationship. Next to that it also can improve the communication with relatives of the patient and with co-workers. Anywhere365 makes the communication more efficient.

Adopting Anywhere365 not only makes you ready for the future doctor-patient dialogue. It also can improve employee communications, provide better patient service, enable business growth and keep costs in check.

Business Case

Careplus hospital innovates communications with Anywhere365.

Note: This case study is for informational purposes only. Workstreampeople makes no warranties, express or implied, in this case study

Organizational Overview:

Careplus is a hospital in The Netherlands with 3 different locations. They want to provide the best care for the patient from the patient’s point of view. In total Careplus has 2.000 employees, 150 medical specialists, 25 medical specialties and 255.000 polyclinic visits.

Challenges:

Careplus has an outdated telephone system, wants to improve patient service and the accessibility of the hospital. Because communication tools today change very quickly, they want to realize a future -proof solution. In addition, they want to increase the efficiency and join a modern ICT policy. With that they want to be ready for future demands in a world where patients and employees are more and more mobile. Therefor it has to be possible to work in virtual teams.

Current ICT situation:

• Multiple devices for each doctor and nurse.
• Outdated telephone system with many fixed (desktop) telephones.
• Phone calls come in at a central point at a secretariat or reception.
• Each polyclinic and department has various communication processes.
• No uniform, clear way of reaching doctors and nurses.
• Cumbersome way to reach patients inside and outside the hospital.

  
Solution:

Careplus decides to replace the old telephone system with a new communication platform based on Microsoft Lync and Skype for Business infrastructure in combination with the Unified Contact Center (UCC) of Anywhere365. By integrating Lync with Anywhere365, Careplus can optimize their processes and put the patient in a more central position in the well care- and work process.

Benefits:

While the implementation is in its early stages, IT management and corporate counsel staff anticipate the following benefits:

• Expanded accessibility to other communication channelsWith Anywhere365 Careplus will be able to expand their accessibility to other communication channels such as Video Chat. A flexible easy way to communicate. For example to provide excellent aftercare when the patient has been discharged from the hospital, without the patient having to travel. But it’s also great for short (5 to 10 minutes) consults. It saves the patient time to travel and time in the waiting room. On top of that it can take away discomfort (pain) from the patient, while travelling and waiting. See the online demo about Web Chat which can be expanded to Audio and/or Video. Also watch the practice case of ArboUnie, which is using the Anywhere365 Video Chat function for Lync to offer digital consults. With the Grid Chat feature of Anywhere365 you can even Web Chat (plus Video Chat) on your mobile phone.

• Increase of patient satisfaction, efficiency and productivityCareplus is more efficient and productive with Anywhere365, by taking away unnecessary steps in the process, by centralizing the patient in the process and connection to other systems. See the patient scenario WITHOUT and WITH Anywhere365. The difference per call is on average 50 seconds.

If you have 1.050 calls per week that is 1.050*50 = 52.500 seconds, then you gain 14 hours. That is similar to 0.35 FTE that you have saved in one week. That is lots of time (and money) saved. Next to that the productivity of the secretaries, nurses increases immensely. Another advantage is that patients are served much faster, which results in a higher patient satisfaction. Anywhere365 is developed with information sharing in mind. Therefore, it is possible to create an interface between an UCC and any other system. Read more about Extension Window.

• Optimization of communication: Because Anywhere365 is combined with Lync the “presence” of the medical specialists, assistants and nurses (secretary) is available. Knowing what the presence is (available, busy, away, offline) gives Careplus a powerful tool to only forward calls to medical staff who are able to take the call. It is even possible to forward calls to another medical team or department when Anywhere365 knows that nobody in the hunting group is online. This optimizes queues and results in shorter waiting times for patients and relatives by the “presence based feature” of Anywhere365. On top of that it is easier for a nurse to know if it is possible to ask a quick question to a doctor. Because the nurse can see if the doctor is “available”. With Anywhere365 the nurse can choose another communication channel like chat to ask the quick question, without interrupting the doctor who for example is examining a patient.

• Optimization of accessibility: One of the major advantages of Anywhere365 is Skill Based Hunting. Skill Based Hunting makes it possible for Careplus that medical staff will be selected fo r calls based on their “skills”. This means that patients and their relatives will be connected to medical staff that are actually able to help them and have the best expertise based on “skill score”. In combination with presence this means getting connected to the medical specialist with the best expertise that is available. On top of that it is possible to give priority to patients and relatives in the queue towards internal employees with “priority detection” of Anywhere365. Next to all these advantages Careplus wants better accessibility after “opening hours” and faster access. That is possible with call forwarding to a medical unit that is open “24/7”. Fast access can be optimized by forwarding calls that aren’t picked up after 30 seconds. Which result in better patient service. But also internal better accessibility is possible. Within a team of 4 oncology specialist it is possible that each assistant is its own contact center (Anywhere365 UCC). With that each oncology specialist has “fast access” to his/her assistant for an efficient work process.

Conclusion Careplus is ready for the future dialogue!

By implementing Microsoft Skype for Business and Lync in combination with Anywhere365 Unified Contact Center, Careplus makes a big step in (future) demands of ICT-supported doctor-patient communication. Apart from a dramatic reduction in call handling, on average 50 seconds per call, Careplus can expand to other communication channels like Video Chat. Next to that communication will be optimized with the Presence based feature of Anywhere365. Op top op that accessibility for patients and co-workers will be optimized with Anywhere365 Skill Based Hunting, Priority detection and Forwarding calls with smart technology. This will increase patient satisfaction, optimize work process and reduce cost.