How LinkLive Enabled Banner Healthcare to Update and Automate Its Transfer Center

Banner Health operates one of the largest healthcare systems in the United States. Based in Phoenix, Arizona, the non-profit Banner manages specialized facilities across six states and 30 major hospitals. Banner is devoted to delivering and supporting essential patient care through excellence in technology and connectivity for urgent care and Telehealth appointments.

When patients at a Banner facility require services provided elsewhere, such as for higher levels of care, Banner transfers them from one hospital to the next. These critical transfers can be high-risk, so Banner invests in technology to support what Charles Larsen, a RN Senior Director, Transfer Services at Banner, calls “life-on-the-line types of situations.”

Banner decided to upgrade its Transfer Center’s Voice over IP (VoIP) solution to better support its care mission. Larsen’s team did not consider their legacy VoIP system, Genesys Cloud, to be resilient enough. It “left gaps in efficiency,” According to Larsen. His team chose LinkLive for the updating and automating of the Transfer Center’s UC functions.

The Need to Make a Change

Larsen explained, Genesys Cloud presented “constant reliability issues where the whole system would go down.” He said, “We’d have to flip over to desk phones and it wouldn’t call-route.” Larsen was further frustrated because “skill-based routing wasn’t available and all the phones would ring at once. It was just pure chaos every time that happened. We were putting pressure on that organization (Genesys) to be better and they just didn’t get better.”

He went on to say, “When we engaged with LinkLive, we were looking for security, reliability and ease of use and they’ve nailed all three of those. We saw the benefits from the system almost immediately. We had had a lot of challenges with our previous vendor and went through a lot of steps to leave our previous vendor. It was almost immediate that, once LinkLive was implemented, it was a steady rock and it has continued that way since.”

Easy to Set Up

Larsen’s team found the initial LinkLive to be seamless because the Banner IT staff, “didn’t have to get too involved.” LinkLive provided support staff onsite as well as efficient remote support. “The go-lives were successful and smooth,” said Larson.

Once the LinkLive system went live, responses to Banner’s phone and email questions were always answered quickly. Larsen added, “sales folks stayed engaged with us through the go-live, which was unusual but much appreciated.”

How LinkLive Has Helped Banner

Banner has now been using LinkLive’s VoIP phone system for nearly three years. During this time, Larsen’s team has discovered that Banner has benefited from LinkLive in a variety of ways. The LinkLive internal communication chat feature, for instance, has been valuable for the Transfer Center. Larsen shared, “That model is where it has really excelled for us. We can very quickly chat with people at home or in the office.”

Another area where LinkLive has added value and efficiency to Banner involves the review of calls for purposes of internal oversight or litigation, which is common among healthcare companies. Said Larsen, “One of the big wins that we’ve seen is the ease of pulling those phone call recordings. They’re pretty well categorized and itemized within the LinkLive system.” Larsen was similarly impressed with LinkLive’s reporting, saying, “The reporting that we get helps improve our processes and operations and that has been valuable throughout the years.”

Another key benefit is LinkLive’s usability. As Larsen put it, “It’s very reliable and we haven’t had much experience with any downtime or dropped calls, which of course is one of the most important things to us. That’s been a big win for us.”

Larsen praised LinkLive for its security features, which is a serious issue at this point in time. He said, “I know that LinkLive takes a lot of pride in the security of its platform, and that obviously is a big deal for a healthcare organization.”

The platform’s stability also stood out, with Larsen commenting, “The stability of LinkLive has been one of our biggest wins in all of this because that was our biggest struggle before. We were trying to solve issues of “stability while maintaining security.”

Return on Investment

It can be challenging to determine precise return on investment (ROI) for a solution like LinkLive, but Larsen has seen the economic benefits of switching to the platform. He said, “We’re reliable. We don’t have our phones cutting out anymore and we’re able to run reports and make decisions on staff productivity based on it. Without a doubt, we’ve seen ROI, probably multiple-fold.” 

Conclusion

“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that I wish I hadn’t waited as long as I did to find a new solution,” Larsen said. “We really struggled with Genesys for quite some time and we had some big downtimes that caused a lot of chaos and a lot of staff dissatisfaction and frustration. Since we implemented LinkLive, it’s been something we no longer think about as leaders, as staff, or as an organization. My lesson learned is: If it’s not working, don’t wait.” With LinkLive, Banner Health’s Transfer Center is running well-poised for growth.