Healthcare organizations get hundreds of thousands of calls every month. Springfield Clinic, which has over 90 locations and 650 providers in central Illinois, handles more than 500,000 calls each month. Before upgrading, the clinic used a telephony system that was 15 years old. It needed several on-premises solutions that worked separately. This caused some problems:
All these problems led to unhappy patients, missed appointments, and extra work for staff. Many healthcare providers with old phone systems face similar issues.
A modern contact center uses cloud technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and automated workflows to handle calls better. Here are some features that help reduce wait times and call abandonment:
ACD systems send incoming calls to agents based on their skills, availability, and patient priority. For example, a call about insurance might be sent to a billing expert instead of a general agent. Springfield Clinic uses Cisco’s Webex Contact Center, which has a strong ACD system.
IVR systems answer calls with menu choices or talk prompts. When AI powers IVR, it can understand natural speech. Patients can say things like “schedule an appointment” or “refill prescription” without going through menus. This helps by:
Industry data shows that IVR with AI can make agents about three times more productive by reducing repeated calls and extra agent work.
Modern contact centers work over many channels like phone, SMS, chat, email, and video. This lets patients contact providers in ways they like. It also balances the workload and lowers phone call traffic.
Tools like Webex Control Hub give live data on call volume, wait times, and agent status. Springfield Clinic’s supervisors said this helps them adjust schedules and workloads quickly.
Using these tools helped Springfield Clinic lower wait times by 70.78% and call abandonment by 43.56% after switching to Webex.
Springfield Clinic faced problems such as needing staff physically present and poor call handling across many teams and places.
After moving to Cisco’s Webex Contact Center, they saw:
Nicholas Fuchs, the Chief Technology and Information Security Officer, said real-time data helped supervisors support agents better. Agents liked being able to cover many teams and locations smoothly, keeping patient service steady.
The system also connects with electronic medical records (EMR). This lets them improve call information and avoid repeating questions to patients.
Automation and AI help healthcare contact centers by reducing paperwork, optimizing call flows, and helping agents perform better.
AI virtual agents can talk with patients when the center is closed or busy. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP), they can:
This cuts down on calls needing live agents, lowering wait times and call hang-ups. In healthcare, managing appointments well reduces missed visits.
During live calls, AI helps agents by giving:
This support improves average handle time and call resolutions. It frees agents to help more patients and shrinks call queues.
Automation connects with workforce tools to:
This lowers agent burnout, keeps service quality steady, and makes sure enough agents are available all day.
By automating routine questions and tasks:
These help create a more stable call center and improve overall care coordination.
Medical practice administrators should focus on:
Using these features helps meet patient care rules while making operations more efficient.
The patient’s experience often starts with the phone call. Long waits and call hang-ups are big problems for patient access and satisfaction. Modern contact centers using cloud technology, AI, and automation give U.S. healthcare providers useful ways to handle these problems.
Springfield Clinic’s change with Cisco Webex shows how a large clinic can cut wait times and call hang-ups a lot. Features like AI virtual agents, automatic call routing, real-time monitoring, and workforce management improve patient experience, staff work, and costs.
Medical practice leaders should think about using advanced AI contact center solutions that connect well with clinical work and electronic health records. This helps provide better care access and higher patient satisfaction in a healthcare system that is often complicated.
Springfield Clinic faced numerous inefficiencies with its legacy, on-premises infrastructure, which was made up of nearly a dozen different solutions. This created technical debt, operational limitations, and required physical presence to manage coverage, impacting patient access and experience.
The clinic needed a flexible and scalable contact center to adapt to patient needs, improve operations, and replace an outdated 15-year-old telephony platform with a comprehensive solution to enhance the patient and staff experience.
Springfield Clinic chose Cisco’s Webex Contact Center after evaluating various options because of Cisco’s industry leadership and the support provided by CX Advanced Solutions, which simplified the migration process.
CX Advanced Solutions played a crucial role by managing the entire migration process, from presales to implementation and ongoing support, ensuring a smooth transition from the old Avaya platform to Webex.
Webex Contact Center provided scalability, real-time insights, and a unified platform for agents to handle calls more efficiently across multiple locations, thus enhancing the overall patient experience.
Post-implementation, Springfield Clinic reduced call abandonment by 43.56%, increased calls handled by 11.8%, decreased average wait time by 70.78%, and lowered average speed of answer by 66.49%.
Webex Calling streamlines communication by integrating multiple technologies into one cohesive solution, allowing agents to focus on their tasks without the complications of a fragmented system.
The clinic plans to further optimize the Webex platform by integrating it with their new electronic medical record system, enhancing efficiency and patient care.
The clinic is excited about Webex’s AI features, including automated transcription, conversational AI, and agent assist capabilities, which aim to further improve operational efficiency and patient interaction.
Springfield Clinic views its partnership as vital for continuous innovation and staying ahead of patient expectations, ensuring they set new benchmarks for healthcare excellence.
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