Jesmond Health Partnership was formed in April 2019 as the result of the merger between The Surgery and Holly Medical Group. Operating from two locations in the heart of Jesmond on Osborne Road, they are dedicated to delivering quality healthcare to more than 13,000 residents.
Jesmond Health Partnership is highly patient focused, they strive to provide an excellent standard of health care to all patients, and they value patients feedback to assist them in doing so. This was the reason for setting up the Patient Participant Group.
“Our Patient Participation Group, or PPG, is a volunteer group of patients who work collaboratively with our GP staff to help plan and improve practice services by ensuring that the patient perspective is always represented. A key objective of the group is to enable patients to play an active role in improving the patient experience and ensuring high quality services and facilities.”
Dave Hall, Operations Manager, Jesmond Health Partnership.
The Challenge
Jesmond Health Partnership was the result of two practices merging, which came with the challenging task of merging the existing technology too. Both sites were operating a legacy analogue telephone system, although the sites were linked, the connection was often unstable. This resulted in call traffic dropping out and patients not getting through to the correct extension.
An additional challenge Jesmond Health Partnership encountered was the lack of reporting functionality available on their analogue system. With no way of measuring the volume of calls that were being lost, it left them vulnerable to patient complaints and effected the patient experience.
“The telephone is still a primary method of communication for our patients, the practice required a reliable and robust telephone system as it’s the backbone of running an efficient surgery. We wanted to invest in technology that could grow with the practice too”
Dave Hall, Operations Manager, Jesmond Health Partnership.
The Solution
After several meetings with Jesmond Health Partnership, Smart IT had a strong understanding of their requirements. From these discussions, we determined that a cloud telephone system would be the best solution to overcome the challenges whilst also offering a future proofed system for growth.
To implement a cloud system, it was required to update the cabling infrastructure at both surgeries to Cat5 network, this allows for IP Handsets.
With the analogue telephone systems, Jesmond Health Partnership struggled with the limited number of incoming and outgoing lines. Smart IT suggested giving each employee a line so all staff can make inbound and outbound calls at any given time.
The Results
Both sites now have reliable, feature rich and future proof telephone systems, they can queue calls to improve the patient access experience and to record calls for their peace of mind and for training purposes, which can be stored for up to a 7-year period free of charge.
The call queuing feature allowed the practice to include a welcome message to allow patients to select options, this means patients get to the right person first time with minimal hold time. The Practice Manager also has the facility to look at call statistics to analysis waiting time and missed calls.
“This extra intelligence helps with the planning of resource and allows us to carefully monitor our call performance”
Dave Hall, Operations Manager, Jesmond Health Partnership.
Jesmond Health partnership are no longer restricted by the inbound and outbound lines as each member of staff now has an individual line.
“During the pandemic this has been particularly helpful for the doctors carrying out triage and consultations over the phone”
Dave Hall, Operations Manager, Jesmond Health Partnership.
The new cloud telephone system also facilitates remote working, enabling staff to work from home just as if they were in the surgery. The Mobile App turns their mobile or laptop into their office phone. As the surgery grows, new users or surgeries can easily, and cost effectively be added to the telephone system, providing the future proofing that Jesmond Health Partnership were looking to achieve. In addition, the new system with all its features costs less monthly than the old unreliable one, so a great result all round.
