Question

As Inner City Urgent Care continues to grow, increasing both patient load and staff, the existing telephone system, consisting of a simple intercom and four telephone lines, is no longer sufficient to handle the call volume and allow for full, immediate accessibility for all staff members. Callers are frustrated by the length of time it takes to get through and by long amounts of time spent on hold. Messages are often late in getting properly routed. Administrative medical assistant Karen Ritter suggests to clinic manager Jane O’Hara that an automated routing unit (ARU) might be more efficient for the growing clinic’s needs. At the next regularly scheduled staff meeting, the provider-employers give the go-ahead to research an ARU.

ARU systems provide several options for callers that identify specific departments or services that callers can be connected with directly. What kinds of caller options might be appropriate for Inner City Urgent Care?

Answer 1

Some of the caller options which can be appropriate for the innercity hospital are

• The recorded voice message should hide the callers
• The caller as a way to communicate with the medical assistant directly I'm case of any emergency
• Inculcation of electronic mail boxes can be used. This can help the callers to leave message to their concerned healthcare professional when they are unavailable and review it when they are available
• Calkers should have an option to use voice over internet protocol