Update on the Call Center Phone System

In response to this year's decreased access to care, Twentynine Palms Naval
Hospital has initiated many interventions in the Call Center including,
implementing the state-of-the art phone system August 2009, to help lessen
the effects on patient care:

ADDED A TRIAGE NURSE TO OUR NURSING STAFF:
1. To evaluate patients’ needs for appointments and offer advice for
home healthcare.
2. Ensures appointments are appropriately and accurately booked to
prevent patients from seeking unnecessary medical healthcare in the form of
clinic visits.

INITIATED A NEW PHONE MENU FOR EASIER PATIENT USAGE:
1. Patients have many options to self-serve such as cancel
appointments or leave a message for the nurse, which eases the workload of
the call center clerks and decreases patient wait times on the phone.
2. To further decrease wait times for appointments, the department
has added more clerks to the morning shift, the busiest call time of day,
further decreasing times and phone call abandon rates.
3. Cancellation procedures have been improved to efficiently process
patient wishes to cancel appointments, consequently, decreasing our no-show
rate and increases appointment availability for acute patient medical needs.

4. In the absence of call center staff due sick or expected leave,
the clinic business managers (Registered Nurses) have stepped in to handle
calls.

As a result of these changes, customer satisfaction has improved.
Increased areas include:
*overall satisfaction with the phone system (63% to 70%)
*ease of scheduling (66 to 70%)
*consideration of the patient’s schedule (79 to 83%)
*ability to see provider when needed (74 to 76%)

CLINIC SATISFACTION SURVEY:
Our clinics continue to reach out to you and evaluate our performance with
satisfaction surveys. During your clinic visit, we will be distribute
surveys in November, please take the time to complete them.

- As we continuously strive to improve services, up-to-date information can
be found in the base or hospital newspaper speedcalls, FACEBOOK, TWITTER,
and THE HOSPITAL BLOG page.
- If you have any suggestions for improvement or comments, please contact
our Customer Relations Representative or myself.

Thanks for entrusting us with your care and helping us reach our vision to
be the treatment facility of choice.