After-Hours Call Center for the Healthcare Industry

Healthcare is never-ending. While it has become standard for us to think that hospital emergency rooms can never be closed, the idea of 24/7 access is less common for smaller health care outlets such as general practitioners, special consultancies, or clinics.

But with health care becoming an ever increasing part of modern life, new solutions must be found. One of those solutions is a constant after-hours service for the healthcare industry. Long gone are the days when people are only able to get access to their medical professional in a tight appointment schedule, now that online consultations and Doctors via Apps are a thing.

This is especially true in regions that were traditionally neglected when it comes to health care coverage, such as rural areas or underdeveloped parts of the country. In these areas, especially, getting on track is paramount. An after-hours service you can rely on can bring your industry into the 21st century. So how can you, as a healthcare provider, or company working in the field of health care, climb this confusing mountain or new opportunities and obstacles?

31West is here to provide after-hours call center services to suit any scale.

As a general practitioner, with a small to medium-sized office, you understand that you are often the first and last point of contact for your patients. You know that they grow up with you, go through life often trusting you as their health care provider for any and all ailments. So how can you make sure you never miss a patient’s urgent message, new symptom or data update?

It’s no longer enough to keep patient databases well maintained in your own office. Now, various government institutions, labs, and other medical professionals expect to be kept up-to-date on any given patient at all times. That’s a lot more work than what a traditional medical receptionist had to do even just a few years ago. All while running a busy switchboard. It doesn’t seem doable, does it?

But a lot of the hassle and stress can be taken out of the equation if it does not all have to be done within the 9 or 10 hours your practice is open. There are solutions available that can help you with those tasks that normally take a back seat during the busy rush. Let’s face it, paperwork is not the reason many health care professionals came to this profession… so why does it take up so much of your daily routine?

Through our thorough vetting and training, our after-hours call centers and help desks can perform a myriad of tasks, going so far as to even perform certain triage tasks (according to your exact specifications), while – as is always the option with us – using your CRM tools or patient filing system, so you don’t have the hassle of transcribing the gathered information. You decide how far you want to go with the tele-triage while making sure your government mandated availability rates are fully met.

Labs and specialists deal with a unique set of problems: They have to keep on track of thousands of patients with millions of tests. And as the old saying goes – the lab never sleeps. At least, that’s what Doctors, nurses, and patients expect. Especially for time-sensitive areas like fresh tissue queries or intra-operative consultations, you cannot afford to miss a call, and often having just a voicemail to answer your phone is less than ideal.

We can help establish protocols or after-hours phone service for all health care industry professionals to make sure any and all queries are directed in a way that will maximize efficiency and leave no case unworked.

Of course, our hospital is open 24/7, I hear you say. Yes. Sure it is. But can that be said for every hospital, even those in rural areas, those in disaster-stricken areas, those running on the very bare minimum of funding? No.

This is where 31West can come in. Staffing a clinic or an emergency room for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week costs a lot of money. Especially in regions of the country where there might not be as much traffic during nighttime hours. But should that mean there is no care and no one to call at all? No.

While your nurses, doctors, and consultants deal with day-to-day real-life emergencies, the switchboard can be operated by someone else. Mundane tasks that get thrown by the wayside finally get actually taken care of. Basic triage questions or directions can be given without having to bother the hospital staff for it. Quick queries can be answered via chat or IM without the patient ever even making “landfall” in the ER itself because it was already taken care of by an after-hours team member. Even patient outreach tasks can be taken care of by our dedicated team of professionals.

You got to pharma because you like two things: chemistry and helping people. While chemistry is all yours (we can’t magic up medicines for you!), we do know just exactly how to help people.

Pharma companies, no matter their size will always be inundated with calls from both medical professionals as well as concerned patients needing to know one thing or another. And while it’s an important part of any pharmaceutical company to assist patients… it’s not really your core business model. And often, pharma companies don’t have the infrastructure in place to field all these calls.

This becomes even truer when staffing constraints make it difficult for companies to offer 24/7 support for consumer questions. A pharmaceutical emergency or question often cannot wait until 9 am when the help desk opens again. Your product works 24/7 – so you ought to, too. But it’s hard to justify a 24/7 help desk managed by live operators. 31West can alleviate that problem.

We can offer you a wide variety of after-hours services for the healthcare industry to make sure your patients are taken care of, triage is categorized and filed correctly, patient outreach tasks don’t go awry. 31West strives to make your patients’ lives better. We hope we have something in common with you, there.