Extreme Service:

Healthcare contact centers bridge from generic transactions to distinctive experiences to build customer loyalty Five opportunities to benefit the bottom line with repeat business

A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy
Copyright 2008 by HealthLine Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy

TABLE

OF

CONTENTS
Reading time Executive Summary: 2 minutes Skim text: 10 minutes Full text: 30 - 40 minutes

I. Executive Summary.Page 1

II. Patient Experience Drives Hospital SelectionPage 2

III. What is Extreme Service?....Page 2

IV. Five Extreme Service Opportunities..Page 4

V. Conclusion...... Page 12

Special advisors to this solution brief

HealthLine Systems gratefully acknowledges the valuable contributions of the following organizations and individuals who were particularly generous with their time and expertise:

Ren Bunting
Vice President, Marketing AtlantiCare Atlantic City, New Jersey

Kelly Faley
Director Marketing Technology Sharp HealthCare San Diego, California

Maureen Donzuso
Manager, Access Center AtlantiCare Atlantic City, New Jersey

Susan Bernhard
Call Center Manager Lehigh Valley Hospital Allentown, Pennsylvania

Chris Morehouse
Call Center Manager Emeritus Lehigh Valley Hospital Allentown, Pennsylvania

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy I. Executive Summary The patient experience is a key driver of hospital selection. Based on 2007 research from McKinsey and Company, only twenty percent of a commercially insured patients hospital choice is based on clinical reputation. Forty-one percent of the hospital selection decision is based on the patient experience. Extreme Service is the intentional shift from a generic we provide excellent service to a culture energized by staging extraordinary experiences. Repeat business is generated by delivering unexpected, memorable events. It is the law of the memorable event1 that determines loyalty. The healthcare contact center is frequently a first and recurring point of contact with the organization. It provides a singular opportunity to establish and maintain a memorable patient experience both by phone and online. It can bridge the chasm from generic transactions to distinctive patient experiences. Sharp HealthCare in San Diego is a recipient of the 2007 Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award. AtlantiCare in New Jersey received JD Powers Hospital of Distinction for Outstanding Patient Experience. Both of these organizations have built Extreme Service behaviors into their contact center. Both have utilized their contact centers for purposeful, positive customer engagement. Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network (Lehigh Valley Hospital) in Allentown
1

Pennsylvania has been included for a dozen years in US News and World Reports guide to Americas Best Hospitals. They have documented the impact of their contact center on loyalty as measured by repeat business. Five opportunities for healthcare organizations and their contact centers include: Opportunity #1: Make Extreme Service a budgeted priority Opportunity #2: Refocus your contact centers role Opportunity #3: Take action! Opportunity #4: Require two vital competencies Opportunity #5: Document the value of loyalty Conclusion Senior leadership should fund Extreme Service as a dominant organizational priority. Leaders unwilling to make this effort may find it increasingly difficult for their hospitals to maintain market share among commercially insured patients as nearby facilities go the extra mile to attract these critically important customers.2 The healthcare contact center is a proven opportunity to deliver an intentional, profoundly positive first and recurring Extreme Service experience. Concurrently, it provides the database to document the value of repeat business on the bottom line.

Fred Lee, If Disney Ran Your Hospital 9 Things You Would do Differently (Bozeman, MT: Second River Healthcare Press, Sixth printing April 2007), p.50 and 51.

Kurt D. Grote, John R. S. Newman, and Saumaya S. Sutaria, A Better Hospital Experience, The McKinsey Quarterly, November, 2007.

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy II. Patient Experience Drives Hospital Selection Research from McKinsey and Company in 2007 identifies that for commercially insured patients twenty percent of hospital choice is based on clinical reputation. Eighteen percent is determined by location. Twenty-one percent is influenced by physician preference. Notably, forty-one percent of the hospital selection decision is based on the patient experience.3

How patients choose hospitals

Factors influencing patients choice of hospitals
(patients allocated 100 100 points, larger larger figure = greater importance)

Patient Experience 18% 20% 21% 41% Physician decision Hospital reputation Location
fact, Extreme Service is more than providing excellent service. Extreme Service is about delivering unexpected, memorable experiences. In the emergent economy, competition will center on personalized co-creation experiences, resulting in value that is truly unique to each individual.5 Extreme Service behavior creates unexpected customer delight. Unexpected delight drives loyalty. When healthcare team members define their work as engaging the patient in a memorable experience rather than just trying to give excellent care or excellent service, the shift is tangible.

Respondents were then asked whether they would switch to a hospital or healthcare organization known for giving patients a positive experience, all things being equal, including the quality of clinical care. More than half, fifty-five percent, said they definitely would. Grote, Newman, and Sutaria summarize the findings: Hospitals need to do more. Our research indicates that hospitals generate most of their profit margins from commercially insured patients, the very ones who are most likely to weigh nonclinical aspects of visits to care facilities when choosing them.4 III. What is Extreme Service? Extreme Service is more than patient satisfaction. It is more than survey scores. In
3

2007 McKinsey survey of >2,000 US patients with commercial insurance or Medicaid and >100 US physicians. Excludes those patients (39% of total surveyed) who can only go to one facility in the community given current health care coverage or severity of condition.
4

C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy The Future of Competition: Co-creating Unique Value with Customers, (Boston, Harvard Business School Press, 2004), p.17

Kurt D. Grote, John R. S. Newman, and Saumya S. Sutaria, A better hospital experience, The McKinsey Quarterly, 2007 McKinsey and Company.

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy

Heres an example of a healthcare organization that successfully made that shift:

In June 1992, Mid-Columbia Medical Center (MCMC) became the first hospital in the world to implement the Planetree concept of patientcentered care facility wide. Over the years, MCMC has been transformed into a one-of-a-kind center of healing; a place very different from what most people expect of a hospital. On patient floors, kitchens and dining areas allow patients and families to cook their own meals and enjoy them together. Room service is available. Activity rooms give families and friends inviting, comfortable areas to relax. Libraries are amply stocked with information to allow family members to research medical conditions. There are no set visiting hours. Guests are free to spend the night close to their loved ones in patient rooms that look and feel like comfortable bedrooms. Nurses stations resemble living rooms. Joe Pine, co-author of The Experience Economy comments on the result. While people used to drive by MCMC in Dalles to go to the downtown Portland (Oregon) Hospitals, he says, Now people drive out of Portland to come to Dalles.6

A healthcare contact center is uniquely positioned to deliver distinctive patient experiences. Prahalad and Ramaswamy8 make this point: A well-run call center can transform a consumers experience from negative to positive, not only by solving problems and answering questions but by offering entirely new ways to enjoy the product or service. Healthcare contact centers: Include both the phone and Web site and are frequently first points of contact Facilitate personal connection with immediate response to caller concerns Allow communication with as much or as little anonymity as is desired Provide both the personal connection and the data storehouse to support relationships as they move from generic service to memorable experience
6

B. Joseph Pine II, co-author of The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999), as interviewed on Leadership Today in October, 2004 by MaximumImpact, Inc.
7

Look at the success and recognition attained by the hospitals that have adopted variations of the Planetree model, observes author and consultant Fred Lee. every aspect of the patients and familys interactions and accommodations have been carefully scripted and staged to provide a memorable, total experience. They exemplify the conceptual shift that the Disney business model brings to a hospital; the shift from providing services to staging experiences.7

Fred Lee, If Disney Ran Your Hospital 9 Things You Would do Differently (Bozeman, MT: Second River Healthcare Press, sixth printing April 2007), p. 112
8

C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy The Future of Competition: Co-creating Unique Value with Customers, (Boston, Harvard Business School Press, 2004), p.37, 38

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy There is one document in the organization which clearly reveals the organizations authentic priorities. While the mission statement is essential to define the organizations purpose; it is not the mission statement. While the strategic plan is a vital map to the preferred Coffee Healthcare future; it isnt the strategic plan. The single document which clearly Contact Center identifies the organizations Futures market Commodity Log on to physician database, self indisputable priorities is the coffee beans: select, look up number, call physicians Extract budget. $.02 per cup office $.01 per call For seven years and counting, Sharp HealthCare in San Diego Grind, package for Good Call or log on to generic national call grocer: has been transforming the health center for non-clinical referral Produce $.25 per cup $5-8 per call care experience. This initiative, The Sharp Experience, is a funded Dialogue with responsive customer Service priority and sets a new standard for Prepare and pour in service agent with hospital-branded corner caf: Deliver experiences with team members, contact center $1 per cup with physicians, with patients. This $10-15 per call initiative touches every aspect of Sharps operations. It is part of the Personalize brew Experience Co-create a memorable experience strategic plan, budget, evaluations, with highlighted with a professional nurse health coach; Stage ambience and sense and even meeting agendas, to name triage symptoms, select physicians, of theatre: services, classes or events with just a few.10 $3-5 per cup confidence and all the time you need with surprising, personalized support In their insightful book The Future of that makes you want to call again Competition, Prahalad and $20-30 per call Ramaswamy11 note that informed consumers have become active participants with the organization in jointly creating value. In the IV. Five Extreme Service Opportunities emergent economy, competition will center on A. Opportunity #1: personalized co-creation experiences, resulting in Make Extreme Service a budgeted priority value that is truly unique to each individual. After patient safety and quality of care, fund Extreme Service as an enterprise-wide priority. If Extreme Service isnt in the budget, it isnt a valid priority.
9

Extreme Service marks the distinction between delivering a service and staging an experience. The inset box9 traces the progression from commodity to good to service to experience for both coffee and for healthcare contact centers.

10

Observations by Kelly Faley, Director Marketing Technology, Sharp HealthCare; March, 2008
11

C.K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy The Future of Competition: Co-creating Unique Value with Customers, (Boston, Harvard Business School Press, 2004), p.17

Adapted from discussion by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999), p. 1 and 2

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy selection are based on delivering ever improving value to customers and improving the organizations overall performance. Sharp HealthCare is the first healthcare provider in California to receive this honor and was ranked as the number one integrated healthcare system in California by Modern Healthcare. Over the past seven years that The Sharp Experience has been the organizations driving priority; Sharp HealthCares market share has enjoyed an enviable increase. B. . Opportunity #2: Refocus your contact centers role Your contact center provides an important first sampling of the customer experience at your organization. Focus your contact centers role on delivering a distinctly memorable first experience. Your contact center is not judged merely against other healthcare call centers. Dr. Jon Anton at Purdue Universitys Center for Customer-Driven Quality identifies nearly 200,000 call centers worldwide.13 Your contact centers role must be to showcase an Extreme Service experience as compared with the best contact centers in any industry. Consumers expect to get their product/service easily and conveniently. Theyve become accustomed to Amazon-style service and we need to compete at that level.14

At Sharp HealthCare, we are on an exciting journey to improve our organizations culture. We call this culture The Sharp Experience because it encompasses all we do at Sharp HealthCare. It involves enhancing the way we interact with and serve our patients and their families, our physicians and our colleagues. Sharp is transforming healthcare in San Diego by striving to be: The best place to work attracting highly skilled and passionate staff members who are focused on providing quality healthcare and building a culture of teamwork, recognition, celebration and professional and personal growth. The best place to practice medicine creating an environment in which physicians enjoy positive, collaborative relationships with nurses and other caregivers. The best place to receive care providing a new standard of service in the healthcare industry by employing service-oriented individuals who see it as their privilege to exceed the expectations of every patient by treating them with the utmost care, compassion and respect.12 Commitment to Extreme Service pays off. Sharp HealthCare is a recipient of the 2007 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nations highest Presidential honor for quality, service and performance excellence. Criteria for

12

Interview with Kelly Faley, Director Marketing Technology, Sharp HealthCare, February, 2008 and www.sharp.com; Website accessed February 2008.
13

Connections magazine interview with Dr. Jon Anton, July/August 2004

14

Observations by Kelly Faley, Director Marketing Technology, Sharp HealthCare; March, 2008

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy Contact centers provide vital feedback that can establish the value of the brand in the customers mind like no other customer interaction. In 2004, callers who had recently contacted a call center were asked how their experience shaped their image of the company and their willingness to purchase again.15 For 76 percent of respondents, the call center experience was very important or somewhat important to caller perceptions of the organization. A follow-up question identified that following a bad experience with the call center, 63 percent would stop using the organization. The healthcare contact center is an important early indicator of the customer experience at your organization. Leverage the law of the memorable event; focus your contact centers role on delivering a memorable first experience. Sharp Healthcare and AtlantiCare have both focused their contact centers to intentionally deliver an extraordinary experience. These healthcare contact centers have implemented specific performance standards to assure a consistent and distinctive service experience. The call centers job at Sharp HealthCare is to set the tone for The Sharp Experience, understanding that the call center is frequently the first point of contact. That initial contact must be a positive one.

The primary community contact center 82Sharp (non-clinical) and Sharp Nurse Connection (clinical) intentionally deliver The Sharp Experience with consistent standards for opening a call, How important was your overall call experience closing a call, transferring a call in shaping your image of the organization? and for how call waiting is handled. The AtlantiCare Access contact center registered more than 5,000 AtlantiCare team members in enterprise-wide training for customer service standards and customer service skills. Specific, intentional customer service scripting is included in the training. Performance standards ensure that customer interactions across the AtlantiCare organization and specifically that connection with the AtlantiCare Access contact center provide a strongly positive experience.

24% 50%

26%

Very Important

Somewhat Important Not at all important

15

Combining Service Excellence with Profitability The New Contact Center Best Practices white paper sponsored by eGain, Dr. John Anton Purdue University Center for Customer-Driven Quality, Benchmark Portal, Inc., March, 2004

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy C. Opportunity #3: Take action! Extreme Service contact centers take proactive action to connect with target audiences and deliver a distinctive service experience. Following are examples from AtlantiCare, Sharp HealthCare, and Lehigh Valley Hospital. AtlantiCare is an integrated delivery system pursuing a vision to build healthy communities by creating an epidemic of health. AtlantiCare is committed to five bests: Best Quality, Best Customer Service, Best Financial Performance, Best People and Workplace, and Best Community Health.16 AtlantiCares has taken action to support their commitment to Best Customer Service: A customer service executive was hired with experience in the hospitality industry to provide insight and leadership. Customer research is conducted to assess loyalty and perceptions of clinical quality. Responses are requested on a five-point semantic differential scale:
If a friend or relative needed to be hospitalized, the likelihood of your recommending ONLY AtlantiCare is Overall, would you rate the quality of care provided as Would you please tell us why you did NOT rate the quality of care as Excellent or Very Good? What could have been done to improve your / your family members hospital stay? AtlantiCare offers a broad-range of health and wellness services. Would you say the likelihood of your recommending ONLY AtlantiCare to friends and relatives is? customers. That information is provided to the appropriate operating units. For example, the contact center identified long delays in making appointments for cardiology referrals and shared the issue with the Vice President of Clinical Services for resolution. Documents both compliments and complaints. AtlantiCare is installing a system-wide complaint management system which will assure that all customer-facing functions will identify and forward complaints for resolution. Established an enterprise policy for follow-up calls when health screenings are conducted and specific criteria are met, based on American Heart Association guidelines. For example, a contact center nurse places outreach calls to individuals with hypertension who have readings outside the normal range. The nurse offers educational information, confirms whether they have followed up with their primary care physician (PCP), and if they have not, offers to schedule an appointment with their PCP. This directly supports AtlantiCares vision to build healthy communities by partnering with customers to manage their health. 17 Partners with targeted groups of individuals in the community who have specific health and wellness needs. Examples are the Diabetes Initiative and Spirit of Women registration, data collection and cross-sell promotion.

Mystery shopping At Sharp HealthCare, the call center team conducts mystery shopping to assess service levels of other parts of the Sharp organization and identify strategies to help those areas improve service. Their objective is to identify how the experience is handled and to document how it can be improved. This ongoing documentation of the process encourages each team member to practice and polish their Extreme Service behaviors. The focus of mystery shopping at Sharp HealthCare is to track, trend, and train.
16, 17

The AtlantiCare Access contact center intentionally supports customer service. The contact center:
Generates a non-accommodation report which identifies roadblocks to access and / or to satisfying

Interview with Rene Bunting, Vice President Marketing, AtlantiCare and Maureen Donzuso, Manager AtlantiCare Access Center, February, 2008

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy

Post discharge calls At Lehigh Valley Hospital the contact center team makes post discharge calls for cardiac patients. They conduct a survey at six weeks, at six months and at one year. Survey results support process improvements.

enrollment first. This service has been appreciated by patients and has stimulated increased class registration and attendance. D. Opportunity #4: Require two vital competencies

Post discharge calls can improve Two essential roles enable contact center satisfaction scores. hospitals that do teams to deliver unexpected service discharge phone calls on every patient experiences. Individuals must be fluent at both generally get higher scores on patient Task and Purpose.19 satisfaction and loyalty than Two critical competencies for healthcare contact centers hospitals that dont. 18 Navigation system Lehigh Valley Hospitals contact center serves as a personal navigation resource for directions to the hospital. When patients call the contact center en route, call center agents look up the callers location on MapQuest and talk them in.

g ildin u b l Skil
e ye e p lo le n c Em c e l Ex

e ye n t p lo eme Em g ag En

Customer loyalty

ing u ild ip b sh on lati Re

PURPOSE: Delight the customer Preferred scheduling Source: Richard D. Stier for Health Line Systems, Inc. adapted from Webinar by Maritz Learning, Inc., 2007 If a customer has attended one of Lehigh Valley Hospitals many classes or Task is about the efficient use of resources. educational events during the past six Computer, software and telephone proficiency months, the contact center honors returning are required. The team member matures from customers with earlier scheduling basic competence to excellence to engagement availability for upcoming classes. While as a fluent power user. Task-based skill many of the classes fill-up quickly, returning development is important, but it is not enough. customers are able to confirm their class
19 18

Fred Lee, If Disney Ran Your Hospital 9 Things You Would do Differently (Bozeman, MT: Second River Healthcare Press, sixth printing April 2007), p 80.

e ye e c ce p l o en t t en Em m p e pe co om

Customer satisfaction

: SK TA

Customer ambivalence

Richard D. Stier for HealthLine Systems, Inc. adapted from Webinar by Maritz Learning, Inc., 2007

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy

Purpose is about the effective development of relationships. As contact center agents become more proficient at building relationships, the customer response moves from ambivalence to satisfaction, and finally to unexpected delight which drives loyalty. AtlantiCare requires their contact center agents to be certified in extensive customer service training, including scripted role playing with emphasis on the interrelationship of the contact center with clinical operating units. Contact center performance appraisals influence compensation and include an evaluation of desired relationshipbuilding behaviors. Lehigh Valley Hospital requires extensive customer service training in addition to daily team huddles to address customer service issues and immediate relationship building opportunities. Every weekday morning the contact center manager and staff for that day have a roundtable discussion. Team members are encouraged to review challenging calls, how they strengthened the relationship during the interaction (purpose), how they documented the call in the software (task), as well as what they learned for effectively handling similar situations in the future. They share news of upcoming events including marketing campaigns with call-to-action to the contact center. The manager encourages each team member to make a positive difference for Lehigh Valley Hospital. The team huddle is reinforcement training for both task efficiency and relationship effectiveness. They are in good company. Disney applies their version of the team huddle on a daily basis.

It is common practice at all Disney facilities and resorts for cast members to meet with their manager every day in a huddle in their departments at the beginning of their shift. At Disney many managers use this effective technique to remind all cast members every day of how they are doing and what they could do better.20 Sharp HealthCare requires contact center agents to participate in ongoing training in the delivery of The Sharp Experience. Sharp has adapted five relationship-building behaviors (purpose) and made them a requirement for contact center team members. Each of these five contact center must have behaviors translates The Sharp Experience from a visual to an auditory environment. While specific must have behaviors are identified, The Sharp Experience is not a script, it is not a recipe. It is a pervasive commitment to do whatever it takes to connect with and exceed the customers expectation; to value experience above transaction. It is an ethos that drives sustained improvement in customer responsiveness and follow-through. To provide examples of Extreme Service behaviors which are uniquely desired in healthcare contact centers, we asked Sharp HealthCare, AtlantiCare, and Lehigh Valley Hospital to review twenty-one suggested team member actions. What emerged are fifteen behaviors which were ranked by all three of these exemplary organizations as strongly desired in the healthcare contact center. These Extreme Service behaviors are summarized on the following page.
20

Fred Lee, If Disney Ran Your Hospital 9 Things You Would do Differently (Bozeman, MT: Second River Healthcare Press, sixth printing April 2007), p 104.

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy

Healthcare contact center Extreme Service behavior

If this behavior occurred in your contact center, it would be a ___ behavior.
(The question is not whether or not this behavior currently occurs.)

Ranking
5 = strongly desired behavior 4 = desired behavior 3 = no preference / doesnt apply 2 = non-desired behavior 1 = strongly non-desired behavior

Initial contact
1) Script the ideal initial interaction to optimize the first impression 2) Actively listen, acknowledge and validate feelings: understand what the caller wants most, communicate a smile 3) Make the contact center a one stop solution: dont transfer calls, find answers for the caller 4) Summarize call resolution and any instructions for the caller to check for understanding 5) Ask: Is there anything else I can do now to support your positive healthcare experience? 6) The organizations survey moves beyond caller satisfaction to measure caller loyalty: after their experience with the contact center how willing are they to refer ONLY to your call center? Importantly, how willing are they to refer ONLY to your organization for their next healthcare need?

1 1 1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2 2 2

3 3 3 3 3 3

4 4 4 4 4 4

5 5 5 5 5 5

Unexpected value
7) Establish a physician hot line for participating physicians- a separate, priority line with immediate response by the call center to make it easy for physicians offices to call and identify in-network specialists who are available for referral

5 5 5 5 5 5 5+ 5 5

Service recovery
8) Seek first to understand: 1) get the facts 2) listen non-defensively 3) repeat your understanding of the problem 9) Identify the cause, ask: 1) What happened? 2) What should have happened? 3) What went wrong? 10) Discuss possible solutions: 1) Ask for callers ideas 2) Suggest options 3) Agree on the best course of action 11) Solve the problem: 1) Remove the cause 2) Take corrective action 3) Ask if customer is satisfied with resolution

1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2

3 3 3 3

4 4 4 4

Performance management and measurement

12) Document non-accommodation to identify delays or roadblocks to appointments for needed services; feed information to appropriate operating units to improve processes and expedite access 13) Document both complaints and compliments and forward both to the appropriate business unit for action and/or resolution 14) Performance appraisals which influence compensation include an evaluation of desired extreme service behaviors 15) Caller loyalty scores are documented in a periodic contact center executive report card, including the financial impact of returning patients

1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2

3 3 3 3

4 4 4 4

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy E. Opportunity #5: Document the value of loyalty The contact center represents an important opportunity to document the value of repeat business. Lehigh Valley Hospitals pyramid analysis documents the value of callers who chose to return as patients. The document identifies patient discharges, patient visits and net contribution for four categories of patients: new, dormant, returning, and existing.

Note that the contact center connected with new patients representing 1,666 patient discharges and $7 million in contribution margin. Returning patients who last utilized services one to three years ago represented 11.2 percent or $2.2 million. Existing patients who returned within the last year represented just over 48 percent and $9.4 million in contribution margin.

Pyramid Analysis
Lehigh Valley Hospital, 2006 data. Used with permission.

New
$7.0M (36%)
Never utilized services or not in 5 years

1,666 Patient Discharges 1,495 Patient Visits

$.9M (4.7%)

Dormant
Last utilized services 3-5 years ago

214 Patient Discharges 440 Patient Visits

$2.2M (11.2%)

Returning
Last utilized services 11-3 years ago

503 Patient Discharges 3,162 Patient Visits 864 Patient Discharges 23,151 Patient Visits

$9.4M (48.1%)

Existing
Utilized services in the past year

$19.5M

Total Total Contribution Contribution Margin Margin

Total Total Discharges/Visits Discharges/Visits

31,495

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A best practice case study solution brief from HealthLine Systems Academy V. Conclusion Senior leadership should fund Extreme Service as an organizational priority. Leaders unwilling to make this effort may find it increasingly difficult for their hospitals to maintain market share among commercially insured patients as nearby facilities go the extra mile to attract these critically important customers.21 The healthcare contact center is a proven opportunity to deliver an intentional, profoundly positive first and recurring Extreme Service experience. Concurrently, it provides the database to document the value of repeat business on the bottom line.

HealthLine Systems, Inc.

is an established leader in the healthcare industry with a 23-year record of client results from proven software and consulting solutions. HealthLine Systems technologies are the choice of over 1,000 distinguished healthcare organizations throughout the United States and Canada. They address pressing requirements for increased market share and for improved bottom line performance. EchoAccess and Sharp Focus browserbased enterprise and pc-based departmental contact center software solutions are the backbone of impactful Extreme Service experiences delivered by leading healthcare contact centers nationwide. These solutions provide the opportunity to document the value of loyalty as measured by repeat business, and facilitate the generation of incremental revenue, integration with the Web, strengthened operations, and improved return on investment. Please visit www.healthlinesystems.com, or call 800 733-8737 extension 7265, or e-mail us at RStier@HealthLineSystems.com.
Kurt D. Grote, John R. S. Newman, and Saumaya S. Sutaria, A Better Hospital Experience, The McKinsey Quarterly, November, 2007.
21

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