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Case Study: University of California, San Diego Medical Center Physician Referral Service

Seven Secrets to Faster Call Processing and Improved Reporting with EchoAccess.

UCSD Medical Center Call Center Staff
Download this case study	Lori Marquez (far right) and the UCSD team.

Organization

The University of California, San Diego Medical Center (UCSD) is San Diego's only academic medical center offering patients access to new medical and surgical options. At UCSD Medical Center, luminary medical minds collaborate to discover breakthroughs that establish new standards of practice throughout the United States and the world.

Challenge

The UCSD Physician Referral Service was challenged by senior leadership to: Achieve faster call processing times. Networking limitations resulted in slow repose times and frequent downtime. Improve reporting functionality, including the ability to have reports output directly to Microsoft Excel^®.

Solution -- Seven Secrets

EchoAccess was selected as the software solution which would enable the UCSD Physician Referral Service to achieve both of these objectives. Manager Lori Marquez utilized EchoAccess to activate seven secrets to faster call processing and improved reporting.

Secret 1:

Script agent opening and closing

Secret 2:

Standardize data entry

Secret 3:

Deploy "Message of the Day" to accelerate call processing time

Secret 4:

Employ the EchoAccess dashboard for increased efficiency

Secret 5:

Automatically generate frequently used reports

Secret 6:

Filter on provider keywords

Secret 7:

Apply Data Wizard

Results

• Applying these seven secrets, UCSD was able to reduce call length by 51 seconds per call. This equates to 536 hours saved with EchoAccess in one year, and time savings representing more than 1.5 FTEs over five years.
• UCSD was able to deploy EchoAccess to achieve its objectives of faster call processing times and improved results reporting. The projected value of reimbursed revenue from additional calls enabled by this time

Lessons Learned

Lesson 1:

Enlist the assistance of your onsite IT team during the sales process. Have them meet with the EchoAccess sales consultant to learn about the technical requirements.

Lesson 2:

Include your onsite IT champion in a meeting with your contact center team to be clear about their needs and expectations for EchoAccess.

Lesson 3:

Clean up merge / purge data prior to the transition to EchoAccess.

Lesson 4:

While in test mode, TEST, TEST, TEST all system components to assure functionality and accuracy.

Lesson 5:

Make certain that your onsite IT champion understands NOT to run scripts or updates while contact center team members are logged onto the systems.

Lesson 6:

Purchase 20" wide screen monitors. Larger screens make it much easier to view the entire dashboard in EchoAccess during a call.

Lesson 7:

Hold a post-implementation follow-up celebration with your contact center team, internal IT champion and IT support team, complete with treats. This is an effective way to say "thank you" to your IT team and to identify both what is going well and the opportunities for improvement.

Lori Marquez,Manager, UCSD Physician Referral Service, speaks from her experience and summarized it this way:

"EchoAccess IS better, faster, and easier! The time required to run my monthly report decreased from at least one day to just a couple of hours!"

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