In the rapidly evolving digital era, healthcare organizations and hospitals must do whatever it takes to meet patients’ needs and expectations.
To know what patients expect from their healthcare providers, let’s take a look at some recent stats and findings of credible studies.
As per a research, 61 percent of respondents said that they want a communication experience similar to online retail. And 83 percent choose a healthcare provider based on the digital communication options it provides.
Another finding of a study, published in the National Center for Biotechnology Information revealed 31 percent of respondents use an electronic health record messaging system when communicating with doctors electronically, 24 percent use email, and 18 percent use text messaging.
This data indicates that a majority of people are no longer dependent on good old voice calls when they have to contact a healthcare maintenance organization or hospital. On the contrary, they are leveraging more and more different communication channels to contact healthcare organizations.
This blog post dives into what multi-channel patient support is and the key features of call center software that enhance multi-channel patient support.
A Brief Introduction to Multi-channel Patient Support
As the name suggests, multichannel patient support is a mechanism used by hospitals and healthcare organizations to enable patients to communicate using multiple channels such as phone calls, video calls, emails, text messages, live chat, and social media.
Multi-channel patient support aims to provide a seamless and personalized experience that meets the patient’s needs.
As per a report released by Precedence Research, the global patient engagement solutions market size is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.59 percent from USD 22.7 billion in 2023 to 89.26 billion by 2032.
Key Features of Call Center Software for Healthcare
When healthcare organizations leverage the right call center software solutions, they get a wide array of features. Among those some of the key features are listed below:
1. Patient Management
One of the most important features of sophisticated call center software is the patient management feature. The right call center software provides healthcare providers with a centralized database of patient information such as:
- Patient Medical History
- Medication Records
- Contact Information
- Appointment Schedules
- Lab Results
- Billing and Insurance Information
As per Oracle’s CTO Larry Ellison, “Once the business data has been centralized and integrated, the value of the database is greater than the sum of the preexisting parts.”
2. Call Routing
Healthcare organizations get a huge volume of calls on any given day. To better serve patients, healthcare organizations must route all incoming calls to the appropriate healthcare provider based on predefined rules such as:
- Patients’ Preferred Language
- Patient’s Pain Points
- The Department Patients Want to Contact
- Provider’s Area Of Expertise
- Provider’s Availability
The right call center software is equipped with advanced and intuitive call routing systems. These systems take incoming phone calls and place them in a sorting queue before directing them to the appropriate agent.
3. Unified Communications
A robust business continuity plan is a must for contemporary healthcare organizations. A unified communications strategy is essential for not only a business continuity plan but also for integrating various communication channels into a single system.
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A unified communication strategy enables healthcare providers to manage patient interactions from a single interface. Healthcare organizations must note Chuck Martin’s famous quote, “The result of bad communication is a disconnection between strategy and execution.”
4. Appointment Scheduling
“Effective treatment and fast recovery don’t happen by chance. It happens by appointment!” Healthcare organizations must keep the statement in mind. They must make sure that patients can easily schedule appointments by calling the customer care number.
Advanced and reliable call centre software can play a huge role in streamlining the scheduling of appointments as well as ensuring that patients receive the right service they need. When healthcare organizations succeed in scheduling appointments,
5. Self-Service Options
The popular quote in customer service “Self-service is the next best thing to customer service” is no longer true. As it turns out, “Self-service is the best service!” As per a recent study by Zendesk, more than two-thirds of respondents said that they would prefer to find answers to their queries on their own instead of relying on customer service representatives.
Whether it’s the e-commerce sector or healthcare, a majority of customers expect self-service options from organizations they are dealing with. Healthcare organizations must keep that in mind. By leveraging sophisticated call centre software, they can provide a wide range of self-service options to patients.
6. Automated Messaging
For healthcare organizations, automated messaging plays a key role. It is not only cost-effective but also highly efficient and reliable. As Haresh Sippy said, “Automation is cost-cutting by tightening the corners and not cutting them.”
In terms of results, automated messages have unparalleled open and response rates. Every four out of five recipients open texts within five minutes of receiving them, and more than three-quarters of them respond within the first ten minutes. The right call center software can enable healthcare organizations to send automated messages to patients.
All In All
In today’s ever-changing digital era, healthcare organizations must ensure that they provide multi-channel patient support to improve patient satisfaction, streamline operations, and achieve better health outcomes.
Leveraging the right call center software can enable healthcare organizations to provide exceptional patient care in the best possible way.
If you are an owner of a healthcare maintenance organization, then you must make sure that you choose the right call center software that comes equipped with advanced multi-channel features.
