Health Provider Getting Crushed Under the Weight of Pandemic Turning to Texting & Call-Backs to Stay Afloat
Having already undergone an industry-wide acceptance of video conferencing technology to survive the pandemic, medical offices like SDIMA were hit with a new challenge, short-staffing during a time of high demand. -- ZTelco Industry Report
SAN DIEGO, Feb. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Having already faced a radical fast-paced adoption of video conferencing solutions, the pandemic recently hit medical offices yet again with a new critical challenge, as experienced and reported to ZTelco by customers like San Diego Internal Medicine & Pediatric Associates (SDIMA).
As more patients and employees found themselves diagnosed with COVID during the recent, highly contagious Omicron surge, more called out of work at offices like SDIMA, a San Diego based practice with two locations.
Seems like the responsible thing to do, staying home when sick. But what happens to a medical office when most of its employees get sick and need to stay home when they're needed the most?
The result can be catastrophic for medical offices not prepared with a proper VoIP solution that can be quickly customized to meet the challenges of low staffing and a sudden surge of calls.
Staff Shortages Offer New Challenges to Medical Office Among a Surge of Patients
The Omicron variant of the COVID-19 pandemic is a perfect example of such a case, having pushed entire markets out of their comfort zone, as they lost staff for days or weeks at a time.
For many medical offices, this could mean canceled appointments and long delays; loss of treatment and a lower quality of care for patients.
Small medical offices are the most susceptible and can easily fail when losing a large portion of staff to illness and quarantine.
Luckily, today's medical offices have technological innovations that can help.
When the pandemic's lockdowns were first announced, medical offices had to find a way to continue serving patients. The result was an industry-wide adoption of video conferencing technologies as viable mediums.
https://ringplan-blog.ztelco.com/overcoming-entry-barriers-telemedicine-covid
The loss of staff in the middle of a patient surge however, is a different challenge that requires new solutions if it is to be avoided again in the future.
CASE STUDY - New VoIP Solutions Save Short-Staffed Medical Offices During High Demand
Crushed by staffing shortages during the Omicron wave, San Diego Internal Medicine turned to ZTelco and their RingPlan business phone solution for a solution.
https://sdimafamily.com/
SDIMA's mission is to provide the highest quality care for all its patients, something difficult to do when staff is critically short. The need was urgent and ZTelco VoIP engineers needed to act fast to provide a custom solution.
VoIP Texting and Call-Backs to the Rescue
It was reported to ZTelco that SDIMA had lost nearly ⅔ of their phone staff to illness and quarantine, and soon would be unable to perform the tasks necessary to deliver the quality of care they are known for.
SDIMA's patient load had nearly doubled, and no one was sure how long this Omicron wave was going to last.
As remaining employees who covered for their sick colleagues began to show signs of burnout, It was clear something needed to be done, and fast.
Having previously installed the RingPlan phone system into their offices, SDIMA called ZTelco support engineers for help.
Engineers took on the task and designed a custom Text Messaging and Call-Back solution within SDIMA's existing RingPlan dial plan architecture, proving to be effective in solving their urgent concerns while optimizing their call operations.
Engineers to the Rescue with a New Healthcare VoIP Solution
Rather than being answered by a live agent, callers were now greeted by an automated message communicating the longer-than usual wait times.
The Interactive Voice Responder (IVR) then asked patients if they would prefer a call back, or if they would prefer to communicate via text message instead.
SDIMA was pleasantly surprised to find that most patients were not only understanding of the circumstances, many preferred to communicate via text messaging instead. The others didn't mind having to wait for a call back, which didn't take too long to receive.
"Text messaging combined with call-backs is a powerful way to access customers." —Jake Hansen, President
Optimizing Phone Operations with RingPlan
Can one person do the work of many? In the case of text messaging, it seems possible when enabled within this VoIP phone system.
While one may suggest that text messaging can take longer than communicating via phone call, what SDIMA found was that one person could easily manage as many as 6-10 conversations at a time with the text messaging feature, within the RingPlan phone system.
The pauses in between sending and receiving text messages even gave the limited phone staff the opportunity to address those on the call-back list.
"Texting has greatly increased access for our patients. The patients love the convenience." —Sara Kramer, SDIMA
SDIMA was able to meet their mission of providing the highest quality care for all their patients while innovating their phone operations.
SDIMA expects a rise in their HCAP Score (Hospital Consumer Assessment Healthcare Provider Systems), as patients favorably rate their access to care and overall satisfaction.
As Omicron wanes and disappears into history, the solution that RingPlan provided for SDIMA will live on as a use-case, how technology can help the medical industry innovate to survive staffing crisis in the midst of high demand.
"We are proud of our support team's ability to quickly respond to customer issues, and the application of their cumulative knowledge to implement solutions for the variety of issues they are presented with on a daily basis." —Daniel Ray, V.P. Operations
About ZTelco's RingPlan Phone System
https://ringplan.com/
ZTelco has been providing business telecom services since 2004. In 2019, ZTelco launched RingPlan Phone Systems.
RingPlan is a Unified Communications platform that combines VoIP phone services with text messaging, video conferencing, and digital fax.
These services can be accessed on mobile devices via app, on the web via web browser, and calls can be made with any VoIP phone registered and plugged into the service.
Medical offices and facilities looking to include a custom solution like Text Messaging and Call-Backs can contact ZTelco or can reach out to RingPlan sales agents directly using the contact information below:
ZTelco
(858) 565-2155
[email protected]
https://ztelco.com/
RingPlan
(833) RINGPLAN
[email protected]
https://ringplan.com/
Schedule a Demo
[email protected]
Media Contact
Marco Castillo, ZTelco, +1 8585652155 Ext: 725, [email protected]
SOURCE ZTelco
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