Call Abandonment in a Transfer Center

Transfer centers for many hospital systems can be the “hub” of patient flow.  They move patients, coordinate rides, find beds, and most importantly make it easy for physicians.  But they’re still call centers, right?

To manage any call center, whether in the medical space or not, the management of the phone system and staff availability is key.  In a previous life, when I worked at a non-clinical call center, it was acceptable to have 4% of all calls go unanswered.  We called them “abandoned calls”.  The math is simple but also complex.  If we staff to answer every call what happens when calls don't come in?  The agents get bored!  They throw things at each other.  They take longer breaks.  Call center volume ebbs and flows, and predicting volumes can be very tricky.  So you study your peak times and the length of a typical call, do your best math, and staff so as to keep your people busy.  You know that each day callers won't get through and will either try again or go somewhere else.  And that's OK.

Would that work in the healthcare space?  Can you imagine telling your physician leadership:  "This transfer center will be wonderful.  Just FYI, we're going to answer the phone 96% of the time so that our people aren't sitting around."  I don't think that would go over well.  In this regard, a healthcare call center has a special metric unto itself.  You must provide top-level service while answering every single call that comes in.  Could that mean your staff has times where the phone isn't ringing?  Could they even knit a sweater in between calls? (I've seen that before.)  The answer is yes, and that's not a bad thing.  If a sending physician is taking the time to pick up the phone and transfer a patient your way, your transfer center must have people available to answer the phone.

Studying your metrics, trends, and staffing can go a long way in finding that balance in call center operation while ensuring top-notch service.