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Case Study: University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS)
How to Use Sharp Focus® to Assure and Monitor Access to your Health System
Organization
University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) is based in Philadelphia. Nearly 3,000 physicians and 15,000 employees at three hospitals with over 1,500 beds serve over 70,000 inpatients and nearly 1.5 million outpatients annually. UPHS is dedicated to high-quality patient care, advancing medical science through research and education the next generation of leaders in medicine.
The UPHS contact center, "PENNHealth" provides services for the entire system. The contact center handles over 200,000 calls per year including support for physician and service referral, assistance with appointment scheduling by phone or Internet, and registration for classes, seminars, and health screenings. Registered nurses answer calls, schedule and provide information to patients for all new cancer appointments, answer all Internet inquiries and appointment requests, and assist with development calls. The contact center includes a centralized scheduling program, and operator services including a physician answering service.
Challenge
One of the top five corporate objectives is to improve access across the University of Pennsylvania Health System. Goals for the UPHS contact center are to optimize conversion of callers into patients, support corporate branding standards with a central brand experience at a central access point, establish a central database for gathering appointment accommodation statistics, create a level of service excellence that is a role model, deliver a referral service that utilizes all medical center appointment and program options, and demonstrate a profit margin for the health system.
Solution
Specific performance targets were established:
Performance target 1: Optimize the conversion rate of requested appointments being scheduled
Performance target 2: Create a central portal of access to support the brand
Performance target 3: Deliver exemplary service excellence
Performance target 4: Provide UPHS appointment transaction data
Performance target 5: Document financial results
Results
Performance target 1: Optimize the conversion rate of requested appointments being scheduled
- 90% of requested appointments are now scheduled
- Staff ask: "Would you like assistance scheduling an appointment?" and stay on the line; if a given appointment does not meet the caller’s need, staff assist with finding another location or practice for an appointment
- Call backs to those not accommodated, reasons for each appointment not scheduled coded in Sharp Focus®, feedback provided daily to designated department liaison
Performance target 2: Create a central portal of access to support the brand
- Established a 'one number status' 800 line to the call center as part of corporate branding standards
- Second local number allowed for classes, seminars, clinical trials and owned physician practices
Performance target 3: Deliver exemplary service excellence
- Established contact center as a UPHS role model for extraordinary customer service
- Provided ideal call scripting with role modeling, established call recording as learning tool, full time quality and service improvement coordinator, quarterly assessment and feedback, incentive program rewards exceptional service, established quality and service performance management policy
Performance target 4: Provide UPHS appointment transaction data
- Utilize 11 user-defined fields (UDFs) in Sharp Focus
- Coding information provides backbone for accurate and complete reports, team members review their coding errors weekly, manager reviews "how heard" compliance, transaction data provided to all clinical departments and marketing
- Department/specialty, location, physician classification, reasons for appointment not scheduled, hold time, length of time to schedule
- The Sharp Focus contact center is the only department that collects centralized data for the entire health system in support of improving access as a top corporate goal
Performance target 5: Document financial results
- Return on Investment is over $35 million annually and increasing
Lessons Learned
Lesson 1: Proactively anticipate call volume growth, staffing needs and options for call processing/documentation
Lesson 2: Purposefully establish programs and call practices to increase appointment conversion
Lesson 3: Record calls and collaboratively identify team member opportunities to improve callers’ service experience
Lesson 4: Carefully track and monitor employee performance reports. Reports are fluid and respond to meet changing health system needs
Lesson 5: Use revenue reconciliation in Sharp Focus to document financial benefit.
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