Modern digital answerphones overcome most of these objections.
They are very reliable.
No moving parts
Rapidly repeat message after last caller hangs up.
We used to use call diversion a few years ago with a personal message. Made
no difference. Selective deafness set in and we frequently got all the
problems of repeat prescription requests, appointments and worst of all the
unjustifiable 'emergency' which often lead to unnecessary visits..
A carefully crafted answerphone message overcomes most of these problems.
So they have to make a second phone call. BIG DEAL.
In fact we make people leave a message on our extremely reliable, state of
the art etc etc digital answer machine which sets our bleep off, making us
aware there is a call. We then interrogate the answer machine and phone the
patient back within a few minutes. This system has worked well for us for
>6 years. Yes it does introduce a further small delay but this often makes
people think! Also you then phone patient back and you already have a notion
of the problem. Very stress reducing
Roger Leary
Roger Leary
-----Original Message-----
From: Douglas Soutter <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 10 May 1998 20:22
Subject: Re: Voice OoH - you ALL missed the point; Ophiuchi the cosmic
superhighway
>
>
>>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.
>
>Except that all the patients would be trying to get through on one
telephone
>line. The answering machine can only "speak" to one person at a time. An
>even greater log-jam would result as the machine was constantly
>engaged/rewinding/giving out smoke.
>
>
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