Delivering Quality Service – An Innovative Approach to 24/7 Technical Support

Question: What happens when the last available ventilator fails at 1am on Saturday morning? Providing quality technical support for high criticality equipment is an issue that challenges Executives and equipment Managers alike. Since healthcare is a 24-hour business, the requirement for equipment uptime within cost effective budgets needs to be delivered.

Traditionally, out-of-hours support has relied on ad-hoc arrangements with clinicians having to contact the Equipment Manager’s mobile or home telephone to report a major problem. Alternatively, technicians are called out using a pager or “on call” mobile number. Since there is no screening of calls, technicians may be called out for “user error” calls or for equipment that can be swapped out.

A solution provided by United Healthcare fully utilises the EBME asset
Management database implemented by UHC & the internet to provide a quality support service.

The call centre operators have access to the database via a series of screens which interact with the EBME database such that equipment & caller information can be retrieved. This service provides three key benefits:

One “Point of Contact” for clinicians for all medical equipment fault reporting & progress information.

Structured flow of data to ensure that fault reports are logged accurately, consistently and in real time.

Fault calls can be intelligently routed to the best service provider – in house team or 3rd party support contractor.

The Helpdesk In Operation:

1. Clinicians call the helpdesk and are greeted.
2. The item’s asset number is requested and retrieved from the database.
   Using the Internet, it is possible to retrieve and send data to the on-site database used by the EBME technicians.
   This can be achieved using Internet Explorer – the internet browser that is included as part of any Microsoft Windows operating system, so there is no need for expensive software licenses and roll-out programmes.
   
   
   
3. Once the equipment item has been identified, the location, serial number and model details are displayed on the screen. These are verified with the user.
4. The user’s contact details are retrieved (or added) to the database so that the caller can be contacted quickly and efficiently.
5. A priority is assigned to the call, dependent of equipment criticality and urgency of the repair.
6. A synopsis of the fault is then sent to the database so that the technician has detailed job information before they even make initial contact with the user.
7. The helpdesk operator saves the call log and a reference number is generated and given to the user for future communications. At this point, the call log is visible on the technicians’ screens.

Intelligent Call Routing:

United Healthcare are now developing a facility whereby any equipment covered under a fully comprehensive service contract is flagged at the point of saving the call log, thus allowing calls to be routed directly to 3rd party service agents.

This has already been successfully implemented for PACS equipment where the manufacturer operates a 24 hour support service.

This adds significant value to the concept since many traditional support arrangements rely on a technician or manager being called in the middle of the night, to travel into the EBME department to find the contact details of the service agent. This task can easily be achieved using the call centre. In the case of the PACS service mentioned above, the user is connected directly through to the 3rd party helpdesk so that they can accurately dialogue over technical matters.

For further information on this concept, or any other data management enquiry, please email enquiries@unitedhealthcare.co.uk or call 01322 424505.