14-06-2021

A PRESCRIPTION FOR PATIENT SERVICE IN THE POST-COVID ERA? AUTOMATION!

Can unanswered calls to your company be eliminated completely? For patients and medical facilities, this is not just a matter of business, but of health and sometimes even of life and death. Making use of cutting-edge digital technology turns it into an achievable goal. Read on to discover just how quickly and easily you can take your patient services decades into the future.

Has the coronavirus pandemic changed our world? Yes, it has. Without a doubt. However, those changes were not caused by lockdowns or the restrictions, greater and smaller, which we have been experiencing since March last year. The pandemic and lockdowns alike have merely acted as the catalyst which accelerated them; they are transformations which would most certainly have occurred over the course of the next few years or, perhaps, within a couple of decades.

Long before the pandemic was upon us, the spread of digital and mobile technologies meant that patients’ interactions with medical facilities were becoming increasingly virtualised. There was a steady rise in the number of people who were no longer turning up in person, but were choosing the phone or a website as their initial means of contact. This was where a challenge emerged. A shockingly high percentage of patients were unable to get through the first time they tried to make contact in order to obtain information or make an appointment.

During the pandemic, the problem has become even worse. Today, the managers of medical facilities are under exceptional pressure. According to global research and advisory company Gartner, internal organisational changes, cost-related pressures, the applicable laws, funding and changing patient expectations mean that 63% of healthcare providers have observed serious disruptions to their operations. In the light of these changes, only the best-prepared organisations will be capable of competing effectively on the market. Gartner estimates that only one in five healthcare providers, in other words, just 22%, is well prepared, by which it means using state-of-the-art tools to optimise processes and implement a digital health first approach.

The pinpoint accuracy of that diagnosis can almost be seen with the naked eye. In numerous regions, patients are complaining that they cannot get through to the doctors’ surgery or a given medical facility on the phone. This can be explained by the fact that the receptionists usually have numerous other tasks on their minds, including matters related to the vaccination campaign. The result is that they are simply not always able to answer the phone. Then there are the times when a patient is unable to get through because another patient has managed to and the line is busy. Meanwhile, a great many studies have shown that the majority of people who are unable to get through once will not try again. Why? Because, rather than wait, they immediately try a different facility. Like customer loyalty in contemporary e-commerce, patient loyalty is minimal.

Today, during the era of coronavirus and mass vaccination campaigns, phone contact with patients is absolutely crucial. At the same time, the issue of unanswered calls has become much more important. Only a relatively small percentage of patients are capable of using online channels to contact a medical facility. It is thus essential to ensure that they can get through on the phone, 24/7/365. Is that actually possible?

Yes, of course it is! The Alfavox Virtual Receptionist is a complete solution that will enable you to achieve a 100% elimination of unanswered calls. That, though, is a mere fraction of what it offers in terms of supporting medical facilities in their provision of modern, virtual patient services and automation of a large number of related processes.

The Virtual Receptionist lightens receptionists’ and doctors’ workloads by handling contact with patients, making appointments, confirming them and rescheduling them. It also provides basic information about the facility’s work and the services it offers.

Our Virtual Receptionist effectively and efficiently sends out reminders about appointments and confirms them, reducing the percentage of missed appointments. Figures published by the Polish Ministry of Health put the annual rate of appointments which go unattended across Poland’s entire public health system at seventeen million. The service this solution supplies thus not only saves time for receptionists and doctors alike, but also creates major savings for facilities themselves.

Another aspect that the Virtual Receptionist helps with is running the free, post-Covid rehabilitation programme. Before every patient appointment with a physiotherapist at the facility and every home visit made by a physiotherapist,  it sends out a reminder. If the patient wants to cancel the appointment, it offers an alternative date and time.

In addition, it arranges anti-COVID-19 vaccinations, sends out reminders and reschedules the appointments as and when necessary. It also eases the workload of medical personnel and reception staff in terms of providing information about the vaccinations.

Explore how, with just this one tool, you can:

• guarantee that patients can get through to your medical facility quickly;
• provide them with a professional services and increase their satisfaction;
• enhance your facility’s productivity, increase the cost-effectiveness of the services you offer and maximise the use of your receptionists’ and doctors’ work time.

Get in touch with our team to find the most valuable benefits: https://www.alfavox.com/en/contact