Crashing the Healthcare Call Centers Conference

Healthcare call centers are important. It was late last year I had a family member double dose one of their heart drugs after dinner. This person has 8 stints, a pacemaker and a watchman. I recommended the ER! However, stubbornness won out so an after-hours call to the cardiologist was made. After receiving assurances from the after hours service the doctor would be calling back shortly, nothing. In fact, a follow up later the next day showed no record of a call being received or the physician even being paged!

This experience brought me to the healthcare call center industry. Last week I attended the 2019 Conference of Healthcare Call Centers in Atlanta. I spoke with so many people my voice was reduced to grunts of affirmation and a thumbs up when my wife asked how the conference was.

https://healthcarecallcentertimes.com/conference-home/

I want to share some random observations from this event but since my voice is still recovering I'll opine them in writing:

1. "AI" controlled chatbots seemed to be on a lot of folks minds. A cursory glance of the vendors showed a few with this capability which is neat if you've not seen it. 

2. Not Salesy! Conversation was focused on best practice and a genuine exchange of ideas. I particularly enjoyed the University of Colorado and Ohio State University discussions with the 100 member audience on how they improved call center operations for patients calling in.

3. This industry loves reports! They are a currency in this space and the more reports you can provide about things like call volumes, call types etc. the better.

4. Decisions Decisions! Plenty of Decision makers are at this show looking at technology to use in their call center. I spoke to at multiple health system representatives who led the call center for their organizations. We are talking 5 Million patient calls a year big and it really shocked me how few vendors have solutions in this space.

5. Investor shock. Not really because I didn't see any roaming the floors like other shows I've attended. My last big show with Harris healthcare in DC had at least 4 investor groups stop by the booth but they simply weren't at this conference......ugh um!

6. Industry Content Providers have made the Health Informaticists job incrementally easier over the years. I was introduced to Schmitt Thompson protocols after entering this industry and had the chance to speak with Peggy from there about enhancements and improvements they are providing to their healthcare call center customers.

7. Call it Large Conference Fatigue - I'm sure there is an ICD10 code for that but this event felt like a much more effective use of my time than ones I"ve been to in Vegas and Orlando :).

8. 35 Vendor booths - by my count this is how many were set up for the conference. Traffic at the vendor booth I was working was high and quality.

9. Whats an EMR app store? Almost every person I spoke to had no idea these exist so I spread the word on Epic App Orchard, Cerner Code, Hitappstore.com, Greenway, athenahealth etc. To my EMR friends- your welcome :).

10. Random thought and takeaway from this conference. on improving interoperability - At the center of the various silos of medical data thats out there is the patient. When they call, why not ask them for it.

11. Oakkar Oakkar - I really enjoyed working the conference with you and wanted to share your article to the crowd also!

12. TRAFFIC! Atlanta traffic is a beast. After getting rear ended by a reckless driver and shutting down 400 south for about an hour- I popped a couple of Advil and continued to the conference Thursday. Why not go straight to the doctor you ask? I was going to a healthcare conference :).