healthcarebusinessreview
Michelle Winfield–Hanrahan, RN BSN MHA MSN Director of Business Development and Marketing, RelateCare
Michelle Winfield–Hanrahan, RN BSN MHA MSN Director of Business Development and MarketingIn the wake of spiraling healthcare costs, the fundamental drive in the U.S. healthcare consulting arena is to do more with less while providing the same excellence in patient outcomes and healthcare delivery. As healthcare organizations are increasingly required to meet the on-demand request of patients, payors, and providers, the role of the healthcare contact center and patient access plays a central role in the wider picture of healthcare. To facilitate on-demand services, enters a market disrupting consultancy, RelateCare that transforms an organization’s contact centers and communication models with call center management and healthcare delivery expertise. The potentially high cost-incurring departments are reversed into pivotal value-adding revenue generators and patient satisfiers for healthcare organizations.

Formed originally as a joint venture between Cleveland Clinic, a leading healthcare provider and Rigneydolphin, a leading business process outsourcing organization based in Ireland, RelateCare’s main goal is to deliver care quickly and efficiently by leveraging enabling contact center technologies married with high-quality processes and resources. The company helps enhance healthcare organizations’ ability to communicate with patients remotely by implementing tailored pre-service and post-acute patient-centered care programs. “For us, the focus at all levels throughout the organization is on continuous improvement and asking: ‘how can we do things better?’” says Michelle Winfield-Hanrahan RN BSN MHA MSN, Business Development Director at RelateCare. With expert knowledge in healthcare delivery and contact center optimization, RelateCare advises and directs improvements in telehealth provision by advancing employee engagement, leadership and ensuring the quality of patient interactions is best-in-class.

RelateCare: Next-Gen Contact Center Tech

With healthcare organizations facing budget cuts, technological investment has to be carefully undertaken to maximize the benefits. Against this background, RelateCare is heavily invested in bringing optimal value to their contact center solution by evaluating and mapping out steps to leverage the potential of existing technologies.

The company understands the intrinsic nature of on-demand healthcare requests and enables 24/7 access to care, remotely manages multi-channel communication, and deploys customer relationship management to improve customer engagement.

In one instance, Cleveland Clinic was in search of a centralized contact center model. They partnered with RelateCare to undertake a discovery period that highlighted the duplication of a number of administrative functions, underutilization of staff, real-estate, technology and inconsistencies in customer experience. On leveraging RelateCare’s assistance, Cleveland Clinic developed a state-of-the-art patient access center, equipped with the latest communication technologies as well as key business intelligence and quality assurance processes. What followed was a reduction in the rate of abandoned patient calls by 28 percent and rate of scheduling errors to one percent, increase in physicians visit by 12 percent, and a 95 percent improvement in patient satisfaction.

As a security (ISO27001) Certified company, RelateCare also helps in the recruiting and training of nurse telephone triage teams as well as designing and developing EHR integrated clinical contact centers to enable their clients to become the market leaders.

“What sets RelateCare apart is our level of expertise and ability to adapt, innovate, and evolve our services to meet the changing demands of the healthcare industry,” states Michelle. The RelateCare team takes the time to understand the current state, the quick wins and the barriers to long-term success, to create a fully engaged partnership model. RelateCare prides on following a strong customer-centric approach and has committed to creating a culture of lean thinking and collaboration.

To continue on the path of success, RelateCare is analyzing the benefits of implementing artificial intelligence in clinical communication and online scheduling. RelateCare aims to enable healthcare organizations to create an environment of value, nurture, and appreciation for patients with an avant-garde patient relationship management solution. The company is looking into expansion opportunities in the UK and Canada. “RelateCare does not only ‘talk the talk’ when it comes to implementing contact center best practice initiatives, but we ‘walk the walk’ through our own best-in-class omnichannel contact centers,” concludes Michelle.