Many things come to mind when thinking about essentials a surgery will have on-site – Doctors, GP’S, staff, medical equipment, but what about telephones? Think about it, telecommunication is a must for every surgery today, as it allows quick access for patients to be able to speak with someone within the GP. Whether it’s to book an appointment, call to gather more information and so on.
Modern surgeries need telecommunications to be kept up to date to ensure the staff have the greatest opportunity to continue their work-flow and care for their patients with next to no communication interruptions. Every call is important as it could be vital for the person who is calling. Emergencies can happen at any given moment that is why it is hugely important that all calls are answered, or if missed they can be easily returned.
The benefits of VoIP telephony for your surgery
Every surgery would hugely benefit from VoIP as it opens up a world of communication opportunities, making the users experience much better with features that offer significant benefits and increase productivity. So, how can a surgery benefit from VoIP?
Features
Hosted telephony is a popular choice for VoIP services offering a future-proof telephone solution which is feature-rich with long term benefits in it’s ease of use and flexibility. . Features including call queuing, call routing and call recording will ensure your surgery is up to date with modern telephone technology improving the caller and user experience.
Call management
Hosted telephony also allows you to keep track of your calls. Reporting how many calls you have had incoming to your surgery, how many are answered, missed and returned, in real-time. This feature is hugely helpful to predict what times and which days to expect the highest volume of calls. Doing this you can prepare staff to be at the ready by their telephones at peak times.
All calls can be reported in real-time with your call monitoring software and displayed on your dashboard to show how many calls have been answered or abandoned and need to be returned.
Saving you money
One of the biggest benefits of VoIP is that is costs nothing to make and receive calls – as all calls are made using an internet connection. Like WhatsApp, Teams and other internet communication platforms your surgeries telephones are now powered the same. So all you need to make free calls from your surgery is a trusty internet connection.
The ISDN switch off
The ISDN switch-off is going to affect a lot of doctors surgeries in the run-up to 2025 – as BT have announced that they will be permanently switching off the ISDN network. This will have a huge impact on places that still use this network of communication. Users of ISDN will have to seek a new solution to keep their surgery connected with its patients.
Have no fear, as there is still plenty of time to move away from the ISDN network if you are still using this mode of communication. In the next few years, you will see fewer users on ISDN as there will be no new contracts or sales of this network. Most places will make the move to VoIP early to avoid any challenges as switch-off dates begin to get closer.
You can do the same by contacting Switch Medical to upgrade your telecommunications to VoIP. All you have to do is call us on 0800 977 8775 or emailing is sales@switchmedical.co.uk.