Developing and Deploying Information Systems to Improve a

Communications Center

Shands HealthCare

Shands HealthCare Communications

Larry Benton, DirectorCindy Barry, SupervisorScott Preston, Systems EngineerClaudia Cloutier, Application Programmer

ObjectivesUnderstand the cost and benefits of software in a Communications CenterUnderstand what systems may be needed and how they are usedSee results and usage in a real center

Systems pre-1993(Electronic)

Astra Message CenterAstra Billing3270 terminal!Patient census!Beeper list

Systems pre-1993(Manual)

Paper RolodexPaper Personnel listingsHandwritten paging logsWhite board for notesOn-call books

Systems pre-1993On-call books

Systems - 1993Six 486-66 MHz !16 MB RAM!DOS/Windows 3.110 Mbps Ethernet486-50 MHz Novell 3.11 server!64 MB RAM!Two 1GB drives duplexed, RAID 1

Systems – 1993NEAX 2400 telephone switchSerial telephone switch data relay box with Digiboard

On-callProblems:!Outdated schedules!Frequent and last minute changes requiring manual updates

!No clear escalation procedures

On-callProblems (cont):!Difficult to mix tracking with continued call processing

!Handwritten paging logs

On-call FeaturesDepartments maintain their own schedule on the networkImmediate updates to all clientsAutomatic tracking to current timeAutomatic paging, reminders, and loggingAutomatically checks for schedule problems

On-call Application

Web Based On-call

Phone ListsProblems!Illegible and outdated paper lists

!Different sources for each dataset – office phones, employees, pagers

!Difficult and time consuming to maintain data

!Inconsistency of information

Electronic Phone Lists

Features!Electronic format for all data!Scheduled updates!Single interface to all lists

Electronic Phone Lists

Web Based Phone Listings

Patient CensusProblems:!Additional id and password

!Frequent downtime!Downtime procedures used day old paper census

Patient CensusProblems (cont):!Unable to distinguish “specials”

!Could not search all fields

!External hospitals not included

Patient CensusFeatures:!Prisoners and confidential patients are displayed in red

!Available when the mainframe is offline

!All fields can be searched!External hospitals are online

Patient Census

Message CenterProblems!Morning message delivery is staff intensive and disruptive to the center

!Billing!Operator statistics not detailed

Message CenterFeatures!Automatic message delivery via

email!User friendly interface!Billing more accurate and easier to

produce

Message Center

Message CenterOperator and supervisor statistics

on the Web

Message CenterReal-time performance monitoring

QueueProblems!Call counts and wait times unavailable from switch

!Abandon rates unavailable

!Information needed for staffing unavailable

!Message Center

QueueFeatures!Call counts and wait times available

!Abandon rates available!Statistics available for staffing

!Message Center

Queue

Long Distance/Overseas Logging

Problems!Paper log sheets!Accuracy!Billing!Reporting!Staff inability to quickly review entries and redial when necessary

Long Distance/Overseas Logging

Features!Electronic log sheets!Billing!Flexible reports!Staff ability to quickly review entries and redial when necessary

Long Distance/Overseas Logging

Systems - 1999Twenty-four 350 MHz Pentium II workstations!64 MB RAM!Windows NT 4.0Switched 10 Mbps to the workstations and switched 100 Mbps to the servers

Systems – 1999 (servers)400 MHz Pentium II Novell 3.2 server!256 MB RAM!Three 9GB drives in a RAID 5 configuration

400 MHz Pentium II NT 4 server!256 MB RAM!Three 9GB drives in a RAID 5 configuration

Systems - 1999NEAX 2400 IMX-U telephone switchTCP/IP telephone switch data relay box

Dictaphone Recording System

Quality assuranceProblem investigationStaff training

Results (annual)Cost: $804,000 2,000,000 calls processed!348,051 Message Center

!19,572 Messages Taken59,977 On-call pages

Results (time)20.1% Patient Census20.0% Phone lists16.3% Message Center14.4% On-call10.4% E-mail1.4% other work activity17.4% Other activities

Closing/questions