ANN ARBOR, MI - The University of Michigan Health System's Office of Physician and Consumer Communication call center is the first in an academic medical center to receive certification as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal, an affiliate of Purdue University's Center for Customer Driven Quality and source for Customer Relationship Management best practices information for call centers nationwide.

“This certification is the result of our commitment to our customers and to our community,” says Laura Rowland, manager of Physician and Consumer Services at UMHS. “It validates the efforts of our team, and our managers' work, to hire and train representatives who will maintain our exceptional standards for quality service to our callers.”

The 13-member team facilitates 100,000 calls from three toll-free phone numbers; 33,000 physician referrals to health services; and 1,400 e-mails annually.

To achieve the first certification of its kind by BenchmarkPortal, Physician and Consumer Communication participated in a rigorous review process based on best-practice metrics drawn from Purdue University 's database of call center information – the largest database of its type in the world.

By benchmarking the call center to the best-practices of its peer groups in areas such as operations, customer and call center agent satisfaction measures, average speed a call is answered, average call length, first hand interviews of agents, and many other variables, auditors were able to determine that the Physician and Consumer Communication call center stood alone in its industry as a leader in academic medical centers.

Rowland says that Physician and Consumer Communication has a unique call center because they not only provide physician referral services for patients and referring physicians, but also single point access for physician-to-physician communications and managed care liaison services, including referral coordination.

“Our dedication to providing expedient customer-centered service is the cornerstone of our business,” Rowland says. “Our staff is very proud of this accomplishment.”

The U-M Health System's Office of Physician and Consumer Communication is a division of the Department of Public Relations and Marketing Communications. Physician and Consumer Communication offers three toll-free services, including M-LINE, to facilitate physician-to-physician communications; M-CALL, the managed care liaison service; and the Physician Referral Service, to assist new patients who seek care in primary or specialty services at UMHS.

The University of Michigan is home to one of the largest healthcare complexes in the world. It has been the site of many groundbreaking accomplishments and technological advancements in the time since the Medical School first opened its doors in 1850. Today, the U-M Health System continues to be on the cutting edge of research and patient care. In 2004, U.S. News & World Report magazine ranked the U-M Hospitals No. 11 in the nation.

For more information, visit http://www.med.umich.edu.

Written by Jessica Soulliere

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