MDCall Improving Internal Communication at United Healthcare

MDCall is a medical answering service and so much more. As an integral part of IVR Technology Group‘s Healthcare division, MDCall’s greatest function is the improvement of communication between clinician to appropriate physicians. MDCall delivers the right message to the right person at the right time.

Clients point out multiple benefits through the implementation of MDCall. Highlights from testimonials and customer surveys include a

• reduction in call volume
• messages are never lost
• care coordination is improved through ease and accuracy

United Healthcare, one of IVR Technology Group’s dedicated MDCall subscribers, has seen a sizable reduction in the time it used to take a nursing home professional to reach a doctor. United Healthcare’s hospitals and nursing facilities alike have all benefitted from the efficiency and reliability of MDCall.

The conventional way of reaching an on-call doctor proved to be a waste of effort and time. The provider seeking to communicate with another provider has to sort through which doctor to reach, define the issue, determine how the doctor preferred to be contacted (phone, text, pager), and finally include key identifiers in each message so the doctor could reach the appropriate facility, refer to the correct patient, and speak to the specific nurse who reached out originally.

The frustration, unreliability, and time wasted using this cumbersome method led United Healthcare to consider MDCall. Since signing on, United Healthcare has launched MDCall in 30 different skilled nursing facilities in the upstate New York area. Each one of these nursing facilities is assigned their own dedicated number.

The system organizes all variables including the day, on-call schedule, level of urgency, etc. The nurse then selects “1” for emergency or “2” for routine. They leave their message and get back to their patients. MDCall recognizes the specific facility making the call and locates the appropriate doctor. An escalation procedure is followed automatically if the doctor does not return the call within the first ten minutes. The resulting benefits United Healthcare has seen through the use of MDCall are extensive. MDCall is half the price of a live operator call center and because human error is substantially decreased and all calls are recorded, providers no longer have to worry about liability security. With only one number to call, standardization of communication outreach makes the system easy for any clinician to learn and operate.

If you’re looking to reduce your internal call volume, ensure messages are never lost, and coordinate care more effectively and efficiently, take a deeper dive through MDCall.

Registering ER Patients Using Their Own Smart Phones

The hospital check-in process takes way too long. So long in fact, I have been tempted to call an ambulance while standing inside the ER waiting room. I’ve felt helpless waiting over an hour to simply check my sick child in. As the room filled with a crowded herd of patients, my tolerance began to fade. I wondered why there wasn’t a more effective, time-saving way of checking us in.St. Anthony Hospital in Denver recognized their patient’s frustration and has found a solution through iTriage. iTriage’s ER Check-In™ is a mobile application, registering patients upon arrival at the ER right through their personal smartphone.

With more and more people owning smart phones, these tech-savvy consumers utilize their mobile devices to search for medical information and access providers. iTriage users notify St. Anthony’s of their pending ER visit directly from their smartphone or Web-enabled device. iTriage offers fast, easy and convenient access of emergency room registration services.

Since patients have recently begun registering their ER visits through iTriage platform, St. Anthony’s has measured:

• Increases in patient traffic
• Improvements in patient satisfaction
• Increased amount of ER healthcare delivery

Providing patients with the access they need and a relationship they value is a priceless gift for your hospital or Private Practice. Like iTriage, IVR Technology Group‘s MDCall improves the patient experience through accessible communication. People today are advocates of their own health. Tap into your proactive clientele by offering them a communication tool that adds value and validity to your patients.

A Little Down-Time Humor

When a web page is down, a customer’s response ranges from “I’ll be back later” to the highest level of cyber road rage. Site functionality and reliability are givens for many customers. Just as the user (myself included) has become spoiled by high speed technology with its instantaneous response time, the ever presence of a company’s website is simply assumed.

But things happen. Every site goes down at some point: no matter how quickly it is back up and running. The reality is our users will at some time click onto a page that is under construction.

The many reasons for a site going down may be out of your hands in the moments of the event. However, your company’s website error message can influence the mood of your customer when clever humor delivers an unpleasant inconvenience. Hubspot blog recently highlighted 10 creative examples of companies implementing humorous error messages in the past when their sites were down.

My favorite was this error message suggesting the little monsters running a muck, swallowing servers whole and having a great time making a disaster. The creative examples Hubspot referenced made me laugh to myself, causing me to wonder what error page I would design for IVR Technology Group.

Muscular cartoon men lined up along the bottom of the screen, straining to hold up the error message page like a garage door and a small portion of the typical home page barely showing as the men struggled to keep the site “up” and the error message page from coming “down”.

Another error page I thought would be funny would be a cartoon man sitting in an arm chair with piles of shopping bags around him. Directly next to him would be a dressing room with clothes flying out of the top. A bubble above the man’s head would simply say, “Pull up a chair and wait with me.”

Giving some thought to designing a creative and humorous error message page could make all the difference to the customer. Turning an annoyed response into a chuckle, even eye rolling reaction serves to lighten the mood on an inconvenient situation that will soon be on the mend.

MDCall’s Voice Messaging Service Lands in the Right Hands

Last night I caught a wild puck. Typical of most arctic-inhabiting Western New Yorkers, I like myself a good hockey game. Keep in mind however, I am no athlete…at all. Together with my husband and our three boys at the end of the 2nd period, a frozen (and terribly misguided) puck landed in my hand. Within the stunned silence of those first few seconds, I looked at my 4 year old sitting next to me and my 1 year old eating a banana on my lap.

Maybe it’s the mom in me, but my mind went there. I pictured one of my kids getting hurt and the panic I would feel making the right choices for medical care as we were two hours away from our regular pediatrician. How would our pediatrician be reached, consulted (given the medical history of one of my sons), and how much time would go by before his input be considered? Thankfully, all the factors involved in our wild puck situation lined up perfectly; resulting in one deep sigh of relief.

As awkward silence gave way to undeserved ego boosting shouts of “Did you see that?” and “Go Momma!” I continued to give thought to the web of communication and factors involved in reaching my doctor, knowing he would receive the message, and quickly return my call. IVR Technology Group‘s custom voice answering service, MDCall connects all medical clinicians and patients together.

MDCall is an automated answering service designed specifically for Hospitals and Physician Practices. MDCall’s primary focus is to make communications between medical professionals as easy as possible and as fast as possible. Every messgae reaches the correct party, every time.

While force of impact and the trajectory of the puck may have been deciding factors in why my hand was the one that caught the black ice cube of death, more advanced, detailed and customizable elements are taken into account when mapping out the journey of each message sent and received using MDCall.

• Originator
• Department
• Urgency
• Clinical situation
• Day
• Time
• On-call schedule
• Contact method (and escalation procedure)

An example of MDCall’s messaging path:

A patient residing at a nursing home facility is exhibiting various symptoms her nurse needs to relay to the physician. The nurse calls into MDCall’s system. The above factors determine which on-call doctor is reached and how. Directed by the physician’s previously dictated preferences and schedule, the system contacts the physician via voice-mail (on the home or cell phone), email, text, or page. The day and time it was recorded will also be visible as well as cataloged within MDCall’s system. If the physician does not respond after a predetermined amount of time, the escalation procedure will automatically kick in (utilizing back up contacts and communication channels). Every message lands in the hands of the intended receiver.

Care Coordination refers to communication between clinicians about organizing and managing patient care. A group of doctors created MDCall in 1997 because they wanted a cost effective, reliable, convenient, and efficient mechanism to reduce the time to communicate information about a patient between two providers.

Unlike my puck’s coincidentally perfect flight to my hand, messages sent and received using MDCall’s secure platform travel from originator to recipient purposefully. Get started organizing and streamlining communications within your private practice or hospital using MDCall today.

 

Front Row Seats to the Coding Combat

IVR Technology Group is joining the Global Start-Up Battle as Silver Sponsor of Buffalo, NY’s Start Up Weekend 2012. Individuals and groups alike will convene at Medaille College on November 16 for this epic, yet friendly, throw down of entrepreneurial innovators.

We couldn’t be more excited as we partner in this effort to strengthen Buffalo’s internet-based technology sector. Executive team members will be observing, mentoring and soaking up fresh perspectives and new talent throughout the weekend.

The Battle begins at 5pm. The order of events are as follows:

Floor opens for anyone to pitch their start-up idea and receive feedback from their peers
Teams organically form around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote)
54 hour full-on Coding Combat: business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation
Final throw down: presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders ( including another opportunity for critical feedback)

Buffalo Start-Up Weekend 2012 is a fantastic opportunity to collaborate, network, and strengthen tech scene of western New York. Connections made here will prove valuable long after people return back to work the next Monday morning. Relationship building is as important of a feature as the brainstorming and innovative thinking bubbling up from these start-up opportunities.

Front Row Seats to the Coding Combat

IVR Technology Group is joining the Global Start-Up Battle as Silver Sponsor of Buffalo, NY’s Start Up Weekend 2012. Individuals and groups alike will convene at Medaille College on November 16 for this epic, yet friendly, throw down of entrepreneurial innovators.

We couldn’t be more excited as we partner in this effort to strengthen Buffalo’s internet-based technology sector. Executive team members will be observing, mentoring and soaking up fresh perspectives and new talent throughout the weekend.

The Battle begins at 5pm. The order of events are as follows:

Floor opens for anyone to pitch their start-up idea and receive feedback from their peers
Teams organically form around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote)
54 hour full-on Coding Combat: business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation
Final throw down: presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders ( including another opportunity for critical feedback)

Buffalo Start-Up Weekend 2012 is a fantastic opportunity to collaborate, network, and strengthen tech scene of western New York. Connections made here will prove valuable long after people return back to work the next Monday morning. Relationship building is as important of a feature as the brainstorming and innovative thinking bubbling up from these start-up opportunities.

Customer Insight Through IVR & Web/Mobile Surveys

Listening to your customers has a direct effects on their loyalty to your company(or lack there of). IVR Technology Group values customer input. Our IVR and Web Surveys are hand-crafted to supply our customers the feedback they need to build a dedicated client base.

Return on Behavior Magazine displays shocking findings: 68% of service providers lose customers because they communicate a feeling of indifference towards them.

Much more than financial revenue, customers are a company’s secret into pinpointing needs and preferences. When customers are asked “How can we improve?”, the answer will prove golden. IVR or Web/Mobile surveys compile priceless insight as well as hard truths to best transform your company and catapult customer loyalty rates. ITG’s IVR and Web surveys offer the following custom options to best acquire customer feedback:

• Customer Satisfaction Surveys
• Product Knowledge Testing and Certification
• Employee Opinion and Feedback
• Customer Service (CSR) Evaluations and Post Call Surveys
• Patient Satisfaction Surveys

Most interactions between the customer and company happen around call center activity. Measuring how successful that correspondence is, serves as critical data for a company’s growth. ITG’s Web and IVR survey platform allows for the voice of the customer to come to the forefront. Regardless of why customers call in, their perception of your company depends on experiences and interactions.

Surveys offer insight into who your customers are and how your services/products are of value to them. ITG is privileged to collaborate with corporations such as Kia Motors. Kia is dedicated to improving their brand by collecting and using customer feedback gathered through ITG’s custom built IVR and Web surveys. Benefits of ITG’s IVR and Web Surveys for Kia, as well as all of our customers, include:

• Lower cost of administration
• Prompt handling of complaints
• Quick identification of problem areas
• Immediate feedback
• Higher response rates compared to traditional survey instruments
• No interviewer bias

Without detailed customer feedback, growth is impossible. Not knowing if the direction you are headed is the same direction your customer demands is a recipe for disaster. Making yourself vulnerable to hear customer comments can be difficult. Changing elements of your product or service may not be easy. But not listening in the first place is the scariest possibility when attempting to run a successful company. Remember, if you aren’t asking your customers how they see you, you won’t know when they’re ready to leave.

Communicate a desire to hear your customer today. Implement IVR Technology Group’s IVR or Web/Mobile Surveys for your company.

 

Customer Insight Through IVR & Web/Mobile Surveys

Listening to your customers has a direct effects on their loyalty to your company (or lack there of). IVR Technology Group values customer input. Our IVR and Web Surveys are hand-crafted to supply our customers the feedback they need to build a dedicated client base.

Return on Behavior Magazine displays shocking findings: 68% of service providers lose customers because they communicate a feeling of indifference towards them.

Much more than financial revenue, customers are a company’s secret into pinpointing needs and preferences. When customers are asked “How can we improve?”, the answer will prove golden. IVR or Web/Mobile surveys compile priceless insight as well as hard truths to best transform your company and catapult customer loyalty rates. ITG’s IVR and Web surveys offer the following custom options to best acquire customer feedback:

• Customer Satisfaction Surveys
• Product Knowledge Testing and Certification
• Employee Opinion and Feedback
• Customer Service (CSR) Evaluations and Post Call Surveys
• Patient Satisfaction Surveys

Most interactions between the customer and company happen around call center activity. Measuring how successful that correspondence is, serves as critical data for a company’s growth. ITG’s Web and IVR survey platform allows for the voice of the customer to come to the forefront. Regardless of why customers call in, their perception of your company depends on experiences and interactions.

Surveys offer insight into who your customers are and how your services/products are of value to them. ITG is privileged to collaborate with corporations such as Kia Motors. Kia is dedicated to improving their brand by collecting and using customer feedback gathered through ITG’s custom built IVR and Web surveys. Benefits of ITG’s IVR and Web Surveys for Kia, as well as all of our customers, include:

• Lower cost of administration
• Prompt handling of complaints
• Quick identification of problem areas
• Immediate feedback
• Higher response rates compared to traditional survey instruments
• No interviewer bias

Without detailed customer feedback, growth is impossible. Not knowing if the direction you are headed is the same direction your customer demands is a recipe for disaster. Making yourself vulnerable to hear customer comments can be difficult. Changing elements of your product or service may not be easy. But not listening in the first place is the scariest possibility when attempting to run a successful company. Remember, if you aren’t asking your customers how they see you, you won’t know when they’re ready to leave.

 

SMS/Text Message Marketing

How can your business thrive with IVR Technology Group’s SMS/Text Messaging services?

Weather small or large scale, any business can successfully market through ITG’s SMS/Text Messaging service. Let’s say your business is a Mom and Pop mini golf place young families love to frequent with co-workers and their families… (yes, that’s some of us and our photogenic families at Charcoal Chorral)

Now with ITG’s SMS/Text Messaging service, your customers get text reminders about upcoming events or themed nights. A link to your business is included so smartphone users can immediately visit your website.

To increase your contact list, you have cleverly displayed signs throughout the course with your ITG phone number, prompting visitors to text the phrase “Hole in One!”. Upon texting “Hole in One”, they instantly receive a discount on their next 18 holes.

You will love how easy it is to sent and receive texts. Your customers will love the convenience of getting event reminders, promotions and discounts right in the palm of their hand.

IVR Technology Group works with long and short codes. We provide opt-in and opt-out support. For just pennies a text, you will be able to measure growth instantly.

Encouraging Employees to Change Unhealthy and Costly Behaviors

Nationwide implementation of healthcare reforms have businesses casting their focus inward. According to a new report by Aon Hewitt, 1,800 U.S. employers and the 15 million (or there abouts) employees they cover have a combined annual health expenditure of $120 billion… with a B! On top of this massive expense is the trajectory throughout the last six years. Expenses for companies because of their employee’s health has increased a massive 40%. That’s $8,000 more per employee in the past 6 years.

This skyrocketing of health expenses has caused employers to wonder what factors are involved in making their employees so unhealthy. Hewitt’s report suggests there are 8 behaviors at fault for this healthcare cost increase.

• Poor diet
• Inactivity
• Smoking
• Lack of Health Screening
• Poor Stress Management
• Poor Standard of Care
• Insufficient Sleep
• Excessive Alcohol Consumption

The above 8 behaviors play a crucial role in the 15 chronic conditions attributed from them and are the blame for the 65% of an employer’s healthcare expenditures. Diabetes, coronary artery disease, hypertension, back pain, obesity, and cancer are all effects of the eight behaviors leading to lingering, and sometimes deadly health problems.

The list may seem a little overwhelming to tackle, but the Aon Hewitt report notes that, “Even if employers are able to meaningfully impact as few as three of the behaviors, they can see a savings of as much as $700 per employee per year.”

How are employers addressing these behaviors in a manner to make change in the workplace? Hewitt’s findings highlight the importance corporations place on increasing health and wellness within their companies.

• 76% of employers offer condition management programs
• 70% want to increase member utilization of wellness programs
• 62% want more effective decision making at the member level when it
• comes to health choices
• 70% say wellness and health improvement are part of their current strategy

IVR Technology Group is fortunate to be comprised of people who strives to maintain a lifestyle of good health. Creating technologies that empower the patient to monitor their own vital signs and track fitness and nutrition goals has inspired us as a whole. The development of health technology advances permeates our thoughts and actions because we love what we do. IVR Technology Group believes in positive change.

Standing desks are utilized at our office. Bike helmets decorate bookshelves and desks until the cyclists head home at the end of the day. ITG’s weekends are full of play parks where we meet together, building healthy relationships with our kids centered around physical activity. Mini golf, bowling, biking, hiking, Bacchic ball, and Wii games are regular events our team participates in together, as friends, outside of work. ITG’s team realizes we have a unique, healthy culture of personal betterment through communicative openness and encouragement.

Investing in wellness and pushing employees to manage their health will prove beneficial to corporations in the long run. Changing behaviors from the top down and permeating the work place with a positive culture is easier said than done. But hopefully the focus on utilizing an employee’s greatest potential can be grasped by bettering the person at the most basic level: their health.