Northgate Medical Centre

This case study out lines how a mecical centre embraced the latest communications technology to enhance patient care and support and to streamline its back office business processes

Customer Background

For many years Northgate Medical Centre was aware of the need to offer better patient facilities to the area which would mean expanding the building and increasing the number of medical and support staff. The exsisting centre was demolished and he practice moved into portakabins while the new centre was being built. Plans were drawnn and passed for a purpose built, state-of-the-art medical centre which would include the following: nine Doctor consulting rooms, two Nurse consulting rooms, a minor surgery suite; an endoscope unit; an audiology room and recovery room. Addedto this is a 24 hr mother and baby help line with baby clinics; parent craft meetings and evening sessions. The Centre was offically opened by local MP Yevette Cooper.

The Business Challange

The practice had a real need for streamlining its call processing and database systems to give their valued patients the best patient care in the district. A large practice of this nature with over 45 extensions had got to get it right first time. Besides, moving inoto a state-of-the-art building with the very latest equitment also required the very best in the form of telecommunications and IT infrastructure.

The practice saw the benefits of being able to route calls effectively to the right person or team. By enabling calling patients to be connected to the right desk - either Appointments, Prescriptions or Results - quickly and efficiently would speed call handling and improve patient care.

Northgate also wanted to retrieve patient database records at the same time the call was handled so that a higher through-put of calls could be acheived resulting in better patient care. However because the legacy medical database was not TAPI copmpliant it wouldn't automatically talk to a standard telephone system. This in itself posed a further challenge to steamlining the patient care system.

The advent of Voice Processing, Call Recording and Computer telephony Integration (CTI), together with more stringent accountability for call tracking and conversation retrieval, meant that the system chosen would need significant flexibility and scalability if it was to adapt to impending stricter legislation in the future .

Why Chrome Limited?

Another important factor was the fear that once the system was installed, the practice would be left in hands of a faceless telephony manufacturer for their trainging and aftercare need, espeacially with the desire to further integrate with evolving technologies.

Inter-Tel's route to market via dedicated and highly qualified resellers such as Chrome means training and aftercare will be just as dedicated as the initial enthusiasm for the sale. Always having on-tap that personal friendly contact for service and support was vital to Northgate for the complete soultion.

Commitment to cutting-edge technology and the Inter-Tel Axxess 10 year development plan meant that Northgate Medical Centre felt warm and secure in their unanimous decision to choose their superlative system.

The Soultion

The soultion has incoming calls handled by systems STAR (Scheduled Time-based Application Routing) which knows when each department is open or closed. If the department is open, the system connects them accordingly. If it is closed it relates to them any emergency numbers and politely informs them of the opening times.

When the patient chooses the Results Desk for example; the call is routed to the Results extensions. As the callis answered the medical database instantly retrieves the patients record associated with the callers telephone number. If, for example, a mother is calling on behalf of a child, the receptionist brings a list of patients from the calling household or associated mobile with a single keystroke without leaving the Results section.

If patients choose Perscriptions or Appointments then the relevent part of the Medical Database will be brought to the screen. Receptionists can even log-on as diffrent roles to facilitate busy periods.

"There is also the factor of simply being able to get things done quickly. The ease and simpliciaty of recording holiday opening times and training day announcements months in advance allows me to concentrate on more important issues." said Northgate'spractise manager Maureen Sharp.

Northgate also utilises the record-a-call functionally built in to Axxess telephone system. The facility of recording delicateor awkward calls at the touch of a button and being able to forward that recording to appropriate medical personnel has proved invaluable.

Results

"The system is not only efficient and streamlined but we also get up to 90% of the calls to the right desk with the correct patient record on-screen as the calls are answered. This in itself allows more calls to be answered resulting in improved patient care." concludes Maureen

Maureen Sharp

Practise Manager

Northgate Medical Centre

"The fine-tuning and efficient after sales and care that the whole team at Chrome provided was - and still is - tremendously comforting"