How the Cloud Improves Communication in Medical Field Settings

Cloud technology has revolutionized the way many businesses operate, including medical offices. As the medical industry experiences great change and significant pressure to adapt to innovations in technology, cloud communications systems have enabled medical offices to improve their business practices in a variety of powerful ways, from customer service to administration and even readiness for a weather emergency or an event that affects the office. Here's how cloud communication is changing the way medical offices do business:

Responsive Customer Service

There are many ways in which cloud communications solutions are improving communication in medical field settings. One prominent example involves streamlining communication within an office's network of doctors and patients. Unlike the complicated and inflexible legacy phone systems, these modern systems enable custom call routing through a virtual receptionist. This way, patients and other incoming callers can quickly and easily reach the right member of the team to ask a question, schedule an appointment, or get a matter resolved. Medical offices can also use this feature to prioritize incoming calls, ensuring the most urgent ones are answered first. Additionally, any member of the staff can also route calls to nearly any device at any location, ensuring a speedy connection so doctors and other key employees are fully available even when out of the office.

Cloud communications systems can also augment existing staffing capabilities. If a medical office is operating with a lean staff, it may be helpful to empower multiple employees to answer incoming calls. This is where the simultaneous ring feature may come in handy. By having a group of handsets ring at the same time when an incoming call arrives on the main office line, a medical office can field a call efficiently by sharing the responsibility. The office can also choose to have music play while callers are on hold in order to create a more welcoming atmosphere for patients trying to reach the office.

Convenient Remote Access

Medical offices that take advantage of cloud-based communications can also benefit from newfound organizational capacities. It's easy for staff to administer and customize these systems themselves using an intuitive administration portal. Doing so does not require specialized technical expertise. This gives medical offices the flexibility and dexterity to adjust their communications systems on demand as business requirements change, without having to call in a vendor to do it for them and then wait for a technician to show up.

All of these features are also available remotely, which can be a valuable asset in the event of an office closing due to a severe weather event, a transit outage, or any other type of emergency. In that event, the medical office staff can quickly connect with one another via a conference call, video chat, or messaging session to determine its response. Once the staff has come to its decision, a team member can remotely configure the main office greeting with a special message. This way, the office can proactively advise patients and business partners on what to expect regarding office hours and staff availability.

Of course, medical office employees can avail themselves of remote access to the communications system in their normal, everyday lives as well. Should they need to access their office extension remotely for any reason on a day when they are working from home or traveling, they can do so using their mobile app or web-based login to the office's cloud-based communications system. What's more, they can use the same system to collaborate with colleagues on the go with a voice call, video chat, or quick message. This way, they can keep the work moving even when they are out of the office.

Seamless Support Between Locations

There's another major aspect in which cloud-based communications improves communication in medical field settings. It's possible to tie multi-location practices together seamlessly, allowing staff in one office to reach their colleagues in another location via their extension just as they would if they were all working together in the same place. This unified communications environment provides all medical offices with the same communications tools to collaborate efficiently, regardless of their location, so no single office is left behind with a siloed system that only allows its staff to communicate internally. By making the full feature set of cloud-based communications systems available to all their employees in all locations, multi-location practices can get the maximum productivity benefit from their investments.

Cost savings are another valuable feature of cloud-based communications medical offices may find compelling. A medical office can reduce communications expenses by placing its calls via the cloud, avoiding the hefty long-distance charges it might have had to pay when using a legacy phone system. What's more, if a medical office has multiple locations, calls between those offices are free, reducing the cost of keeping multiple offices connected with one another throughout the workday. This also applies to calls placed to and from employees working remotely via the mobile app or a laptop and a wireless connection, further controlling costs and keeping them manageable.

There are several ways in which medical offices are improving their business practices using cloud-based communications. Whether they are improving their customer service by creating more efficient call routing processes or allowing their staff to easily and remotely administer the system on demand, medical offices now have the tools to make their day-to-day work more efficient and, thus, increase their capacities to bring in new business — all while achieving cost savings they couldn't have enjoyed before.

Contact Vonage Business to learn more about how cloud-based communications can aid your company.