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Who we support
Arema Connect is contracted by one of Ireland’s top public healthcare service providers to support their comprehensive health screening programmes. We provide healthcare customer support to four national population-based screening programmes as a part of this contract, including checks for:
- Breast Cancer
- Cervical Cancer
- Bowel Cancer
- Diabetic Retinal
A history of responsibility
Arema Connect has been contracted since 2009 to design and develop a Contact and Data Management System to support the screening programmes set forth by the healthcare provider. Arema Connect has sole responsibility for fulfilling this contract, which spans a number of duties, including managing enquiries and feedback from the public, as well as providing administrative and mail handling services and support. Arema Connect has retained the contract during 3 tendering processes.
Providing dedicated support and specialised knowledge
Arema Connect provides healthcare customer support to the client’s screening service with a dedicated team to handle calls from 9:00am-6:00pm from Monday to Friday, across the 4 programmes. We also currently manage emails for two of the programmes, with the potential to expand this service to other programmes in the future. The team currently consists of 14 agents, including 2 dedicated Key Account Managers (KAMs), both of whom are registered nurses. This partnership began first with the implementation of the cervical screening programme and was later expanded to include the other 3 programmes as a result of the top-class healthcare customer support Arema provides to the client.
Our agents handle the calls for each of these programmes. Attentive to the sensitive nature of this work, and to the specialised knowledge required to best support the public seeking these screening services, each agent is trained fully across the programmes.
Each of the four dedicated lines are housed within an Interactive voice response (IVR) system where the caller is given the option of having the call transacted through English or Irish. Callers are then presented with:
Option 1 - Diabetic Retina Screening
Option 2 - National Bowel Screening
Option 3 - National Cervical Screening
Option 4- Breast Check Screening
Based on their selected option, callers are presented with additional information and then connected to an available agent who can handle their queries.
Information & Communications Technology (ICT) System:
Each agent has been provided with their own secure login to the healthcare provider’s CRM system, providing traceability of call logs. This enables the agent to look up programme participants’ details over the phone by entering the clients’ unique patient number.
Patient privacy and security is key, thus the agent is required to capture a number of personal details in order to handle the query for GDPR purposes. If a programme participant is unable to participate in the call directly, they must be in attendance to confirm their identity and give consent at the time of the call.
1) Cervical Screening Programme
Overview
The cervical screening programme provides free smear tests to all eligible women aged 25-65. Arema Connect provides healthcare customer support to eligible clients of the screening programme through the programme’s dedicated Free phone line. Any clinical queries are transferred to one of our two clinical nurses on staff, who follow up on these with a target of responding to all queries within the same day. The nurses are then responsible for liaising between General Practitioners (GPs), clinics, and callers. They additionally liaise between smear takers and the cervical check laboratory and colposcopy teams to help resolve any clinical queries they may encounter. The team has now progressed to managing the dedicated inbox of email queries, and our nurses now handle additional types of queries that the healthcare provider has assigned to us, including post-colposcopy enquiries, post-hysterectomy enquiries, enquiries during pregnancy etc. These emails are handled via Microsoft Outlook, with agents consistently monitoring the email inbox throughout the day to ensure that responses are sent the same day or no later than the following day. Each of our agents is provided with email templates and extensive knowledge base documents to ensure they can provide the most thorough, up-to-date healthcare customer support to programme participants.
Typical call types:
- Women looking to register in the programme;
- Women checking if they are on the database;
- Where women can go for examinations;
- Where women can access information about procedure(s);
- GPs/nurses checking if a programme participant is registered;
- How long will participants will be waiting for an appointment;
- Women looking to discuss further after receiving their result letters.
Managing enquiries, feedback and providing support
Our dedicated team answers any Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) the programme participant may have. This programme has a wide spectrum of query types and our dedicated KAMs have shared a comprehensive knowledge base that answers a wide variety of questions so that our agents may be empowered to resolve queries on a first-contact basis. Yet should it be necessary, agents must follow the required escalation procedures. Suppose a smear taker has a colposcopy-related query that they are seeking further guidance on. In that case, this is escalated to the clinical team who liaise with the colposcopy coordinator on the smear takers behalf to promptly resolve the query. Other escalation types can include press inquiries, requests for information leaflets and clinic updates. Furthermore, the team has a full list of Well Woman Clinic numbers to provide to the caller if needed, as well as a full list of registered smear takers across the country to provide contact and address details for as needed.
Outbound Calls
The outbound component of this programme includes callbacks based on clinical emails, lists sent to us from the provider each morning, as well as those based on ‘return to sender’ errors with letters inviting people to participate in the programme or results. The latter requires our team to reissue letters and update the contact details of programme participants via our mail-handling procedures. The team is responsible for carrying out 400-500 outbound calls on behalf of the cervical screening programme, typically taking place on a monthly basis.
2) Bowel Screening Programmer
Overview
This programme offers a Bowel Screen home test kit to women and men aged 59 to 69 every two years. Based on our performance from the initial cervical screening programme, Arema Connect was awarded an additional contract in 2012 to manage this programme.
Typical call types:
- Information on the home test kit;
- What the screening involves;
- Having a test outside the 60 to 69 range;
- Consenting participants to the programme;
- De-consenting from the programme;
- Results
- Information resources
Managing enquiries, feedback and providing support
The Bowel Screen programme has many aspects to it. Programme participants using the test kit for the first time have a lot of questions and it is up to our team to reassure these callers and provide relevant healthcare customer support. By taking calls for this programme over the past 12 years, our dedicated team has built up a strong knowledge base and has an excellent wealth of training material to hand.
A programme participant may also call the Freephone number to advise that their Screening Fit Kit has:
- Not arrived;
- Was damaged on arrival;
- Was damaged by the participant.
In these instances, the agent will record all relevant comments in the further information field so that the programme can monitor their complete screening journey. It is possible to request another Screening Fit Kit to be issued to the programme participant should they need it.
The agent can also update programme participants’ status from excluded/ de-consented back to active, when an individual is excluded/de-consented for any reason in error.
When a fit kit is completed incorrectly, the programme participant is called back to confirm if they would like a kit re-sent. This occurs when incorrect dates are put on the kit or if it was not posted on the date it was completed.
Colonoscopy Queries
In the event that blood is found in the test sample, a results letter is issued. The programme participant also receives a follow-up call with a nurse to arrange a colonoscopy. The individual sometimes rings us if they are very concerned. Our team always communicates with empathy and offers reassurance to all programme participants, advising that it may take up to 10 days to receive a call. The agent will add a record of these calls into our Corteza based CRM system, Crust, which is then sent to the client’s corresponding hospital. The nurse can then promptly follow up with these clients and discuss any anxieties they may have.
Outbound Calls
Daily healthcare customer support calls are carried out for the Bowel Screen programme, whereby the team follows up with programme participants who have incorrectly completed or used the test kit. The Arema Connect team is provided with a dial list each morning, which typically includes 50+ calls per day. When these calls arise of misused/thrown out test kits, our agents also coordinate a new test kit to be sent out to the participant.
Scaling Up our Services
As of August 2024, Arema Connect has also expanded our support to this programme by taking over the monitoring of their general email queries via Microsoft Outlook. This is a testament to the quality of the healthcare customer support we provide, as well as our ability to scale up support as needed. Prior to our team taking this over the response time was on average 10 days and there was a backlog of 500+ emails. Within 2 months our team cleared the backlog and currently emails are responded to in the same working day. Our team has been furnished with extensive documentation to inform their responses. While we aim to resolve these queries on a first-contact basis, more clinical queries must be escalated to the Head Office, highlighting the extremely collaborative nature of managing this programme. We may in the future expand to email monitoring for other programmes as well.
3) Diabetic Retina Screening Programmer
Overview
The Diabetic Retina Screening Programme is a government-funded screening initiative in Ireland that offers free, regular diabetic retinopathy screening to people with diabetes aged 12 years and older. Using a dedicated Freephone number, people with diabetes can check if they are on the registry and can also inquire about the screening itself. Arema Connect was awarded this contract in 2013 following the quality of our healthcare customer support with previous contracts since 2009.
Typical call types:
- Consenting patients from the screening service;
- Updating patient details
- Patients not receiving their letters
- Changing appointment times some text
- In these instances, while we don’t have access to appointment information on our side, we will transfer callers to the dedicated appointments line, handing over client details to the agent before transferring.
ICT System
The administration team gives each agent a unique password and username to access the client’s database. This is unique to each agent and provides a call log for every interaction on the system, allowing us to see who has made any updates to a client’s file. From here the agent can search for a programme participant using any of the following:
- Status
- Patient ID,
- Personal Public Service (PPS) Number
- First name, surname
- Mother’s maiden name
- Address
- Date of Birth
- City/County
- Gender
- Agents can search using a combination of these
Managing enquiries, feedback and providing support
Part of this contract is informing callers of the various stages involved in the screening process and what each entails. This is achieved through our agents’ comprehensive understanding of the screening Programme.
Administration Services
Our team is also responsible for mail handling and processing a large volume of letters in addition to the calls that come in. We receive registration forms every week from GP practices regarding patients who want to register for the programme. Patients must be registered into the system by a healthcare professional. The dedicated agents first manually input GP details and client information into the system. The completed forms are then sorted, scanned, and sent via secure email to the Head of the Programme. Data protection is vital so our mail handling procedure dictates that these hard copies are then shredded by a Certified Document Shredding contractor.
4) Breast Screening Programmer
Overview
The breast cancer screening programme is a Government-funded programme that provides free mammograms to eligible women on an area-by-area basis every two years. When women turn 50 they become eligible for screening. Using the Free Phone line number, participants can ring in to ask when their next screening is. Our team logs queries, answers healthcare customer support FAQs and escalates messages accordingly. We currently handle in-bound calls for this programme, and future plans include managing the dedicated email inbox.
Typical call types:
- Clients asking if they are eligible
- When we are screening again in an area
- Information on mammograms
- Test results
The agent is required to capture:
- Caller Name
- Caller unique programme ID ref number (information contained on invite letters)
- Caller Primary Address
- Phone Number - primarily Mobile Number
- Date Of Birth of programme participant
Managing enquiries, feedback and providing support
This contract requires our agents to have an in-depth knowledge of the service, answering FAQs and other general healthcare customer support queries. Our KAM has structured all the relevant documentation for our agents so information is easily accessible. Our dedicated team can also exclude programme participants from appointments if requested, and check when participants have last been screened using the clients’ in-house system. If a caller’s address is altered or an appointment request is logged by an agent, then the same agent must also log into a password-protected shared spreadsheet to note this. This is so the static units who carry out the screenings can be informed and they can call the programme participant when they are in their area. This document is exported and mailed to the healthcare provider each morning.
Project Management Services for all four programmes
We send random call recordings on a weekly basis to the Four Programme Manager(s). 100 call recordings are sent to the Programme Heads each week (about 30 calls for each - Bowel, Diabetic & Breast) with 50+ calls sent to the Head of the Cervical Screening Programme.
We are required to provide weekly activity reports in line with Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) to the head of each programme. These reports are monitored very closely and if we don't reach the Service Level Agreement (SLA) of calls answered on a particular day, we always highlight this in the report with the suspected reason, which could be an unforeseen spike in volumes. Our agents typically receive a score of 100% in these quality checks.
The KAM receives regular training to ensure that they are up to date in every aspect of the four programmes, so that agents are always providing the best healthcare customer support possible. The training for this contract involves a mix of our nurses attending on-site training with the healthcare provider, as well as attending frequent online training sessions. After these training sessions take place, our 2 nurses bring back that information to the rest of the dedicated team, conducting our own internal “train the trainer” sessions. This training system is particularly important because over time Arema Connect has been given more responsibilities by the healthcare provider.
In 2023, Arema Connect handled over 150,000 calls across the four programmes.
Benefit
Partnership Approach -
This partnership commenced with the cervical screening programme and later Arema Connect was awarded the three further contracts. This demonstrated that Arema Connect was not only well capable of handling and managing these types of services, but we also have the ability to scale up as needed. We have now been working with this public healthcare provider for nearly 15 years.
Extensive Staff Capacity Planning -
Arema Connect has the necessary healthcare customer support expertise to plan ahead and manage peak call volumes. Using the call reports and analysing the statistics, the KAMs forecast how many agents are assigned to the account. Typically more agents are assigned to the screening programme accounts at the beginning of the week as this is when it’s the busiest and there is a high volume of calls. This ensures that there is a sufficient number of agents allocated to the account in order to meet the SLA’s.
Designated KAMs -
The KAMs are responsible for overseeing the operations of all four programmes. They ensure that agents are fully trained in all aspects of the account. They are both Registered General Nurses, providing additional in-house expertise for more clinical queries, especially for the cervical screening programme.
Flexibility -
In 2018 Arema Connect ramped up accordingly to manage and support the high call volumes under the cervical screening programme.
Experienced Team -
Many of the team members have been working on this account for several years and therefore have extensive healthcare customer support knowledge of the related procedures and processes of the account. Our two qualified nurses help to bring additional knowledge and insight to the account.
Result
We are currently reaching a service level of 98% of calls answered with an average wait time of 22 seconds, in excess of 98% of all calls are answered and acted upon in less than 5 minutes. The SLA is 95%.
Conclusion
The public healthcare service provider has been one of Arema Connect’s longest-standing client relationships, with nearly 15 years of renewed contracts. Our dedicated agents have developed an extensive knowledge base in providing healthcare customer service and have proven themselves to be not only loyal to the client, but also committed to We have continuously innovated alongside the client in order to scale up our support to meet the demands of the public seeking these services.
