Five9 Knows Healthcare: Improving Patient Care in Times of Calm and Crisis

The healthcare industry gets a bad rap for being technologically behind the times. Even before COVID and the quick shift to virtual doctor visits, patient expectations — influenced by the service people receive from businesses in other industries — have evolved rapidly. Meanwhile, doctors and hospitals have struggled to keep pace.  

This is understandable; it’s imperative that the quality of service doesn't decline during any digital transformation a medical practice might choose to undergo.  

Historically we accepted this tendency to remain a technology laggard.  

No one gets hurt by making an extra trip to the doctor’s office or speaking to a hospital a couple times more than absolutely necessary. But times have officially changed.  

Solutions for a Healthy Patient Contact Center  

To explore how a healthcare operation might leverage Five9 to evolve the service delivered to its patients or members during times of calm and crisis, consider Steve.  

Steve just turned 40, technically making him a Millennial, but he’d prefer you not call him one. He works as a consultant providing business services to manufacturing companies. 

But this story doesn’t start today; it starts back in February of 2020 when Steve dropped a suitcase on his foot while trying to hurry off an airplane. By the evening, his foot pain sent him to seek help from his favorite healthcare site.  

The Five9 Visual IVR makes it easy for the hospital to triage Steve's request; ultimately his chat is routed to Nurse Nancy who suggests he ice the injury and monitor it for swelling. Steve complies and goes to bed, feeling better.  

A few weeks later Steve, still limping around, decided to see a doctor. So, Steve called the hospital and successfully booked an appointment using their Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA). Steve received a text with his appointment information. In 10 short days he would meet Dr. Fuller, the podiatrist.  

I think we all remember what happened next... March 2020 – suddenly in-person appointments were no longer a given.  

Steve went back to the text message he received and replied to ask whether he should come in. The text was routed to an agent named Mike. Mike was presented with Steve’s interaction history from his time with both Nurse Nancy and the IVA. He reviewed the conversations and saw Steve’s upcoming appointment. Mike could tell that Steve was really worried, so he asked if it was okay for him to call.  

As they spoke live, Mike empathetically listens to Steve’s concerns, but since Mike was not sure whether Dr. Fuller’s office closed; he needed to conference in a back-office user. Since Five9 is pre-integrated with many Unified Communications platforms, Mike can easily see who is available at the office and conference with them. Steve gets the answer he needs and plans to come in as scheduled next week.  

But as we know, things changed quickly in 2020.  

A few days later, the hospital asked its doctors to consider telemedicine for all non-emergent cases. This was a big change for them, but because the hospital was already on the Five9 platform, it was much easier. They leveraged experts at Five9 and successfully trained doctors on the application, allowing them to work from home.  

Steve received a proactive notification from another member of the Five9 Digital Workforce that included instructions for their upcoming tele-appointment, and when the day arrived, his phone rang, right on time.  

The doctor reviewed the omni-channel history, received a screen pop of Steve’s medical chart, and easily initiated the video conference so he could ask Steve to show him the affected area.  

For the sake of Steve’s privacy, we’ll leave the story here, knowing that Steve was in great hands interacting with his doctor in a quarantine friendly, HIPAA compliant manner.  

Next Steps 

So, we’ve seen how Five9 helped this healthcare provider to service their patients during times of calm, with great features like automated appointment scheduling, visual IVR, and chatting with a nurse.  

Then we saw how they might leverage Five9’s more advanced feature set like proactive communication and video calls during an emergency.  

Five9 knows healthcare. Leading healthcare companies, including those in telemedicine, use the Five9 Intelligent Cloud Contact Center platform to deliver exceptional patient experiences.  

Learn more about what Five9 can do for healthcare organizations. 

Download Healthcare Anywhere: Deliver Next Generation Healthcare Experiences to learn how to create connected experiences with patients and members by integrating your cloud contact center with your CRM, UC, and other key systems