3 Ways Cloud IVR Improves Your Healthcare Communications and Operations
Inefficiencies in communication, especially in the healthcare industry, can negatively impact the condition and recovery of your patients as well as patient experience. Moreover, it can also leave an unpleasant impression on patients and families who require prompt medical help.
That said, you must act immediately if you are noticing breakdowns in your communication, both internally and externally. If left unaddressed, these issues can escalate and significantly lower the quality of care you provide for your patients. Ultimately, it can damage your reputation and affect the funding you receive to support your operations.
This is where the importance of having the right communication tools comes into play. Interactive voice response system (IVR), in particular, is a powerful tool you can utilise in tandem with your voice channel to deliver convenient and customer-friendly service to your patients.
Here are some applications of IVR in your healthcare communications that are worth exploring.
1. Appointment Management
The interaction between you and your patients is central to your healthcare service call center. That said, it is worth noting that all of these interactions usually start with an appointment or customer call. How you make and keep these appointments influence your performance, the reputation of your healthcare agency and ultimately customer satisfaction and customer expectations.
Unfortunately, patients inevitably miss their appointments from time to time. Sometimes, they may show up late or ask to reschedule at the last minute, and this can easily dislodge your schedule for the day.
Integrating IVR into your healthcare communications, patient experience and contact center allows you to send out regular appointment reminders for your patients to avoid these instances. It can be through SMS messages or pre-recorded phone calls. Additionally, you can customise when these reminders go out according to your preference.
2. Medical Information Collection
Integrating the technology into your communication system lets you use apps that allow you to record personalised test results and attach them to a patient’s medical record. When recording, you can use a combination of pre-recorded audio and text-to-speech for general test results.
As soon as the recording is entered into the system, the app can call the patient and replay the recording for them to hear. If they have questions about their results, you can use the same technology to connect their calls directly to a nurse or a specialist.
3. Asset Management
You often work with a lot of medical equipment to provide the best care for your patient. If your facility is relatively big, however, finding the location of the right equipment can be a chore. This is another aspect where interactive voice response systems and unified communications can help.
Using cloud IVR applications and IVR Software, you can assign an ID to a piece of equipment in your premises. When one of your team needs a particular apparatus, they only need to call a number and input the device ID. They will then hear a response dictating the current location of the apparatus in question.
Having such integration makes it easier for providers to find critical medical equipment when they’re in a race against time.
Conclusion
There are various uses and applications of Cloud IVR solutions in your healthcare system and call center solution . Aside from the three mentioned above, you can also use it to transfer critical information quickly, identify a patient’s post-procedure issues faster, and automate the dissemination of prescription information.
Your agency may be performing well at the moment, but there will always be room for improvement. You need to constantly find ways to refine your service and healthcare communications. In this regard, IVR is a technology that can remarkably streamline your processes and empower you to serve your patients in more unique ways.
If you require hosted IVR solutions in Cornwall and surrounding areas, we’re the ones to call! We specialise in cloud-based telecom phone systems and Cloud based IVR call management solutions.
More importantly, our phone systems can be configured to meet your agency’s requirements.
If this sounds like what your healthcare agency needs, get in touch with us today!