Curiously you all missed the point.
To recap, I suggested, a technological point, that an answerphone is an
unreliable bit of kit, and it makes sense to put it in a place where it
is supervised by somebody who can reset it or replace it if it goes
wrong.
THat star service diversion is reliable by contrast, and therefore
practices should divert to a number served by a block of answering
machines at the Out of Hours (OoH) centre, and that higher tech
answerphones can give a message, wait and then pass the call on to an
operator if the caller stays on.
A storm of people claim that their patients must be made to make two
calls in order to stop them ringing OoH for repeats and appointments,
and that therefore the answerphone in the practice must remain.... NO.
Sci Fi interlude and book recommendation
--------------------------------------------------
John Varley in one of his stories set around the Ophiuchi Hotline, a
river of information flowing some distance beyond Pluto's orbit, had a
character who was so bored by sitting on his own listening to it that
he contemplated suicide. But the only way he could think of was to go
outside the station in his spacesuit and wait for the air to run out...
ANd he couldn't stand the thought of al that emptiness (or anything
messy, since you ask)
Naturally, his absence of real intention was responsible for his not
realising he could perfectly well have worn the suit inside the space
station, and walked around in it until it ran out of air...
Hi Declan - good series - no?
------ back to reality -------------
Solution to both requirements (reliability and imposing a 2nd call on
patients)
Divert to the answerphone, in the OoH centre.
THe answerphone says "The surgery you called is CLOSED. If it is an
emergency, call this number. You can make appointments and order
repeats in working hours only, or by using fax or the Internet" or
whatever the usual standard message is...
So, where is the phone that rings when the calls redirected from the
answerphone come in?
Yep, 12 cm to the right of the answerphone.
SOlution achieves reliability, by providing maintenance, may reduce
costs of multiple answerphones in surgeries, offers the opportunity to
add intelligence, and also allows th eimposition of a second call on
the patients.
Refinements
----------------
There seems to be a widespread agreement that there is a blizzard of
calls at 1805 and 0750, but it seems unlikely that a great number of
people make attempts to order repeats at 0300. BTW, if somebody feels
the need to make an appt at 0300 don't you think it may be best to give
them one - otherwise they wil get more and more worried, and then call
for a consultation a couple of hours later, networking appointments for
all surgeries is one of the more obvious benefits of a pervasive
network, and an EMIS using colleague has made use of it at home for
some time, but I digress.
- handle the calls differently according to the time slot. At 1805 th
ecall gets a recorded message and nothing else. At 0010 convert it to
a message - hold - passthrough system.
- handle differently according to where they came from (not so much
using CLI to screen out particular patients although all of us have
particular phone numbers we would want to generate particular
responses, mostly positive ones)
as using a differnet message or
strategy for different surgeries.
Mine for instance generates few out of hours calls, I would like them
dealt with with less inconveneince to patinets, whereas certain
colleagues, with high call rates, may insist on a particular message,
and a break and recall....
Charging and Funding
--------------------------
So make it a premium number. <g>
Clinical? Governance
------------------------
Not strictly, but one of the quality markers I would consider looking
at for a practice, and conversely an index of need for funding staff
and equipment would be the number of calls which don't get through
during working hours, since if there are a lot they must contribute to
the early and late calls.
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