MARKET REPORT Healthcare
“During-COVID-19 adoption of Cloud-services has really jumped like never before.” -
Dave O’Shaughnessy, Healthcare Practice Leader – Avaya EMEA & APAC
Rapid Transformation -
Healthcare
In this feature we take a look at the healthcare market at a time when it has never been more relevant. Amid
a global pandemic, partners have been scrambling to ensure healthcare facilities, in whatever form, are able
to continue to provide support to the nation despite the difficult conditions. In this feature we take a look at
some of the challenges the sector is currently facing
For the vast majority of us,
our Covid-19 experience is
one of social distancing and
isolation at home. For many
readers of Comms Business
things have been quite dierent,
call volumes have gone through
the roof, video conferencing has
become an everyday tool, and
bandwidth requirements have
exploded. e Channel has been
doing an exceptional job getting
the nation into ‘Remote Working
Mode’ and in the health sector
things are no dierent. I
asked the market what kind of
challenges they are coming up
against right now.
James Gargaro, Sales Manager,
at Premier Choice Group
says: “GP Surgeries and their
sta are at the forefront of the
COVID-19 pandemic, risking
themselves daily in support of
the community they serve. With
enforced GP practice closures
and a transition to telephone and
video call triaging, the risks may
be reduced but the pressure is
increasing.
is has resulted in increased
telecoms requirements to support
more outbound calling. And
there has been increased pressure
on inbound call handlers, far
above typical volumes, as patients
call in for advice and support.”
Simon Whatley, Director of
Sales Operations at Tollring said,
“Communication systems are
being put to the test, ranging
from mass communications from
GPs about process changes, to
individual notications about
hospital appointments, or peaks
in inbound calls across all areas
of the healthcare industry, from
NHS 111, to GPs, to district
nursing teams, and all down the
healthcare supply chain.”
Ian Bevington of Oak
Innovation said “e step
increase in call minutes,
caused by additional questions,
rearranging appointments and
telephone consultation has
put strain on communications
infrastructure. ey need
solutions that can help them
manage calls more eciently,
keep sta safe and make their job
easier.
With the right tools, selfisolating
clinical sta can
contribute by managing
telephone consultation from
home. However, many surgeries
have limited availability of
network connected laptops and
are relying on personal mobile
phones without call recording or
analytics.”
Whatley continued, “Practices
are looking to have GPs and/
or receptionists to be able to
work remotely. is creates
opportunities for resellers from
a telephony viewpoint, but it
can also be augmented with
the ability to have services like
CBM: What are you seeing from a traffic profile perspective
right now?
Sam Hodgetts, Director and Co-Founder of FCP Technologies
“Traffic profiles to surgeries are constantly changing, the NHS
message is don’t call if you have COVID symptoms. But I guess
there is an element of people ignoring that.
We are seeing consistent surges through the day (the normal
pattern is massive spikes in the morning as people try to book the
days appointments) surgeries may be having to limit appointment
slots as we have 1 in 4 GP’s and support staff sick or self-isolating.
Using more advanced features like estimated wait time and
automated call-backs would help. As well as allowing the surgeries
to constantly update the IVR messages, so patients know to hold
on or hang up and call later/tomorrow.
I think the surgeries with legacy technology (on-prem PBX/ISDN)
will feel it most. This has to be a wake up call for them to move
these voice services to the cloud and for VAR’s to start to look at
the more advanced solutions in the market.
I’m guessing many are trying to carry out appointments over
the phone or via video (if they have that capability). Can doctors
work from home? - Technically yes, many of the cloud-based PBX’s
support that, but what about patient access systems like many
other verticals? That seems to be the gap. It’s now easy to get the
call to the homeworker, but can they actually access the systems
they need to do the work? I think this will be one of the biggest
issues we learn from the crisis… in all verticals.”
24 | Comms Business Magazine | May 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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