Episode 1
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[00:00:00] Chris: Looking for interesting business and patient success stories. Our Alphanumeric podcast Make Your Mark is all about the ways our company, partners, customers, patients, and services navigate the complicated healthcare landscape. Join me your host, Chris Spohr, senior director of marketing at Alphanumeric to hear inspiring stories directly from patients and their care.

[00:00:27] Learn valuable insights from subject matter experts and hear from some of the brightest on what patient care looks like now and well into the future. Listen now and be inspired to make your mark.

[00:00:47] It takes a lot to make your mark in the pharmaceutical industry, and one of the most important aspects is aiding patient adherence. In order to make sure patients are successful in their therapy, it's essential to focus on the human connection and [00:01:00] personalization. This can be done with the support of a wide variety of digital tools and agents that are well trained to offer a personalized and empathetic touch with the common goal to empower the patient and their caregivers.

[00:01:12] Joining us today is Scott Townsend. Senior Accounts Manager here at Alphanumeric Systems. Scott has been a leader in the contact center field at Alphanumeric for many years, and we are excited to hear his insights and learn more about new strategies to build patient loyalty in the contact center. Welcome, Scott. 

[00:01:30] Scott: Well, thanks for inviting me.

[00:01:31] It's a pleasure to be here today. Excited to talk about patient adherence and, and all of the important aspects of that. What I've been as a healthcare provider for going on almost 40 years now by training a pharmacist and a patient advocate for nearly all of my career. And I'm real passionate about patient care and all of the things that entail allowing people to be able to live [00:02:00] a, a better and healthier life. 

[00:02:01] Chris: So Scott, you and I both have been in the healthcare industry for quite a while, more years than we probably want to combine, but the big thing about it is obviously, and. Big part of our make your mark serious is about the human side of what we do.

[00:02:15] And we work in such an interesting industry in general that has lots of technological advances, but we can never lose sight of the patient and what they need. So a lot about what we're gonna talk about today ultimately is how do we blend those two and make sure that we have an optimal experience for the patient.

[00:02:34] Because at the end of the we all are, whether it's today, tomorrow, we all are patients, um, and we wanna make sure that this is set up properly for us, for our family, and for our friends. So I'm very interested, number one, to hear from you. Let's kind of start off with the basics in general. What is a contact center and what role does it actually play for patients?

[00:02:55] Scott: That's a great question and to sort of level set everybody to understand. [00:03:00] You know, a contact center, we've all called at one time or another, those every company for concerns or questions or problems, complaints, and those are essentially contact centers that you're calling in the healthcare space. It's quite a bit more intimate, right?

[00:03:15] You're talking about your personal health and how that impacts you on a daily basis. So it, it has more of a, a visceral sense to every individual in the healthcare. So when you're calling those contact centers, you're reaching out for help. You're reaching out for something that's really an important piece of who you are every day and how you manage your day.

[00:03:39] Chris: What are some of the challenges that you see that we're facing with contact centers, and ultimately, why is patient loyalty so important?

[00:03:47] Scott: You know, when you have someone who calls into a contact center in the healthcare space, oftentimes they're not feeling that well. Mm, And so they're reaching out for help. It's a cry for help many times for people and you know, we [00:04:00] see that with product quality complaints that we help to manage and help to work people through the problems that they're having with a particular device or product, and it's a redemptive process, right? We want to help them to feel confident and comfortable with what it is that they have to address their concerns, to make sure that they know that they're heard, they're understood, and that we're with them on their journey to getting what they need to make them feel better. When you have someone who is using, just for instance, say a rescue inhaler to help them breathe when suddenly that device is no longer working, that causes a lot of concern and anxiety in an individual knowing that, well, the thing that's keeping me breathing is no longer functioning.

[00:04:47] That tends to put some fear in some people. And so when they call, we have that understanding. We have that level of empathy with the patient to make sure that the information that we're [00:05:00] going to provide to them is gonna make them feel better. 

[00:05:02] Chris: That's a great point. And, and, and honestly, I think your assessment of loyalty is, is just, I think it's perfect in terms of what we're talking about today because we probably almost should have started off and while we were defining contact centers, we probably should have defined what loyalty really is too as well.

[00:05:17] And I mean, that leads us directly to a, a main loyalty issue, which is, adherance, and you know, obviously it's a big topic these days, you know, I think that we see it from a very global standpoint as adherence being a major issue. So for you, what does it mean if a patient is not adherent to their treatment plan?

[00:05:38] And why is adherence so challenging today? 

[00:05:41] Scott: That's a great point because adherence has historically been a challenge in the healthcare space for patients to remain on their medication regimens or their treatment regimens. We've seen statistically somewhere right around 50% adherence or [00:06:00] compliance, uh, is another term that we use.

[00:06:02] And those numbers always increase the greater amount of contact the patients have with their healthcare providers. And that hits on multiple fronts because there's a myriad of reasons why people will contact a healthcare provider to help them feel better or have a true causation. Why should I take this medicine?

[00:06:23] I feel fine. You know what's the reason for me to continue to take this every single day at the same time every day? That's what we do, is we make the connection between the why that the patient needs to be taking this, and it helps give them a better understanding of the course of their therapy to keep them on that journey.

[00:06:43] And the implications to the individual, which is the most important thing, is that they stay out of the urgent healthcare system, right? Urgent cares and emergency rooms, when they're suddenly not breathing or their disease state has suddenly exacerbated. And the [00:07:00] medications that they're on that manage those, they provide a level of continuity in the patient system.

[00:07:06] And when patients are not adherent, you lose that continuity. And so then people are always doing the ad hoc things. Ad hoc things are always expensive. So when you have to go to the emergency room, or you have to spend a night in the hospital or three weeks in the hospital because your condition has flared up, that's a, a cost that has to be born by society and by staying adherent to those medication regimens or treatment regimens that their healthcare providers have prescribed for them, they're going to see the benefits of that. The patient is going to see that, hey, I get to spend more time doing the things that I wanna do. I get to spend time feeling more normal or more like myself, rather than being on my backside in a hospital bed or having to take an adjunctive therapy to get me back on track.[00:08:00] 

[00:08:00] So these are all of these things that impact the patient directly impact society indirectly. And of course there are benefits as well for industry, for adherent patients that help keep consistent supply of medication. That's one of the big things nowadays is the reliance on the supply system. Right, and how to be able to predict how much medication we need to produce.

[00:08:24] But I think most importantly, it impacts the patient directly and it also helps physicians to be able to direct a course of therapy for a patient. If they don't stay compliant and they don't stay adherent to their medication regimen, then we're always playing catch up. 

[00:08:40] Chris: So from a patient perspective, what is with that other 50% that actually don't see through their treatment, what are some of the factors that lead to them not being adherent?

[00:08:49] Scott: Well, there's a, a myriad of those as well. Cost, access, affordability, those are some of the elephants in the room, so to speak, particularly on the beginning side of [00:09:00] getting on therapies is onboarding a patient into therapy. The access and affordability is really the beginning stages. There can be, you know, supply chain disruptions that can cause a medication to suddenly be out of stock. And that can be the access part. That can happen at any time. We've seen that from time to time just about any medication. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when your medication at some point may be out of stock for one reason or another. And there's a number of reasons for that as well.

[00:09:29] Hmm. But I think the, the affordability aspect of it, particularly in today's world as I think most people would agree. The cost of medication is not going down. It is going up. So being able to coordinate, particularly here in the US with your insurance company to make sure that your insurance is covering, if not most of it, enough of it that allows you to be able to support the rest or else, uh, finding patient support programs that can help [00:10:00] you. 

[00:10:00] Chris: So one of the big topics we hear a lot about today is digital transformation. It's a topic that I think is thrown out a lot. Again, one of those topics that we probably need to define ultimately what is digital transformation, and not all the time.

[00:10:14] When you hear digital transformation, do you think, "Oh, it's gonna be a more personal experience" from a digital transformation standpoint within the contact center, how important is that transformation and what are some of the things that you are seeing and doing to make sure that you have a nice fine blend of the human interaction versus the digital aspect of things?

[00:10:35] Scott: Yeah, I think that's very important because in today's society, from a contact center perspective, we need to be meeting the patients where they are. And what I mean by that is that we need to be available to them. When they need us, not the other way around. And so having those digital tools being available 24/7 being available on multiple formats, you know, virtual [00:11:00] assistance, chat bots, email, sms, text messaging, as well as telephony contacts, uh, are traditional telephony that we use.

[00:11:10] These are all important ways in which we can reach patients, even social media is becoming an important aspect of healthcare, provided contact center information. So that to me is really where digital transformation and where the evolution of contact centers really need to push towards is making sure we're everywhere that they need us to be. 

[00:11:37] Chris: Which, I mean, it's a perfect segue because it leads me to my next, uh, question, which is ultimately where do you see the contact center going in the future? Does digital technology continue to enhance the role of the contact center and make it even more personal? And obviously just more, you know, engaging in and allowing patients to understand their treatment plans better, be more adherent, and continue to [00:12:00] obviously, you know, help the industry move forward as a whole?

[00:12:03] Scott: Yes, absolutely, and I think you already touched on it, is that, you know, the early methods and modalities of automation or chat bots or even virtual assistants have a very robotic sense to them. They are not very human and doesn't allow for a very comfortable or complete ability for a patient to interact and feel that the information that they've gotten is appropriate to them or meets them at their needs.

[00:12:34] And I think that that's the challenge and that is the evolution of where contact centers are going. Natural language processing in virtual assistance is a part of that solution that we're seeing in the fronts and the ability for us to utilize these digital tools as not just standalone entities onto themselves, but [00:13:00] adjuncts to all of our human components within a contact center.

[00:13:04] They can operate independently as we know, which makes us a 24/7 operation. But importantly, the digital tools can be used to help the agents while they're in a live call to be able to best provide the right information at the right time. So I think I know the answer to this question because I think I heard it, but I'm gonna ask it again anyways.

[00:13:26] Chris: Do you ever see AI becoming so intelligent that we don't need human operators and agents to take in calls? 

[00:13:34] Scott: Well, after almost 40 years in healthcare, it's hard for me to extrapolate what the future is gonna be, and I imagine it depends on the age of the individual. For myself, I hope not, but you know, someone in the younger generation, my children perhaps might say something different.

[00:13:51] And I guess that these are things that we haven't seen yet. I'll say that, but I think that from my perspective and [00:14:00] my experience, people need that human touch. They need to hear a human voice. Have someone who understands the situation that they're in and know that they're gonna be there to follow up with them, to walk through their concerns.

[00:14:15] Make them feel like they matter. And I think that as good as we can get an ai, I don't think a computer is gonna make someone feel like they matter. 

[00:14:24] Chris: Yep. Yeah, I agree. And, uh, it's just interesting to see in general, like, you know, with the different virtual reality components coming on and virtual care, you can't replace a human.

[00:14:33] You just can't. At least not yet. We'll see. 

[00:14:36] Scott: Right. Reaffirmation is something that really is unique to humans. 

[00:14:40] Chris: Exactly. So obviously we've heard lots of really good information about the contact center, but I want to hear some real time stories. So, do you have a good example of a case study where you know, you've really seen how technological advancements in that blend of the human aspect has a really good [00:15:00] solid case of how things have increased the the overall patient engagement?

[00:15:04] Scott: Yes. I think that one of the biggest initiatives that I had put forth in one of the contact centers I worked for for a large healthcare organization was to really improve the performance of the agents as a mechanism of communicating with patients. And we were able to establish a 30% improvement in performance over about a nine month period.

[00:15:28] And it really comes down to professional development, engagement with the agents, teaching them the skills that they need to be able to perform using a number of tools, self-reflection, self-evaluation, gamification, and training. There's a number of modalities that we use to help them become more engaged and purposeful and present when they were engaged with the patients and the consumers.

[00:15:59] So [00:16:00] I think that as an integral piece of a contact center and part of the technological pieces, if you will, human beings are a part and parcel of that new evolution. And so if we don't pay as much attention to... development of that performance, were gonna be missing one of the most critical pieces in the puzzle here.

[00:16:26] So that's one of the things that we did, and it had a tremendous impact. It helped our customer satisfaction scores, it helped our net promoter scores. All of those things were evaluative and, and, uh, qualitative that we could see and quantitative that we could pull from the data. Yeah. I think that was one of the most important things that we did was to be able to develop the people.

[00:16:49] Chris: Yep. And I think one of the things you mentioned to me when we were talking earlier, the whole playback of like as an individual, when we talk to individuals, or let's say we interview for a [00:17:00] job and we play back in our head all the things that we've said and how we could have said it better. I just think the whole idea of what you integrate into the overall training process to have an agent actually hear a call back actually recorded and actually be able to adjust. It's great because a lot of times when we replay in our head, we don't hear exactly what we said at that time. So I'm interested to see and understand more about the importance of that playback feature. 

[00:17:26] Scott: Absolutely. And that is just one of the many pieces of professional development and training, coaching and counseling that we have as an ongoing continuous improvement of agent performance and agent development.

[00:17:41] And that was an important evolution that we leveraged for everyone because it's very common for us to, after of having a human to human interaction, to be reflective upon it, to say, I could have said that differently, or I would've liked to have said that differently. Or perhaps I could have approached that [00:18:00] in a different way and been more effective.

[00:18:02] And this is how we help the agents to really understand their purpose and how to interact and use those tools for their own professional development as well. Because when you hear your own voice, it's much more impactful when you're your own teacher. 

[00:18:18] Chris: Yeah, and trust me, I'm gonna be hearing my own voice through this podcast series so many times.

[00:18:22] I'm gonna make lots of changes. But hey, that's part of podcasting. It's uh, keeping it fun, keeping it light. So we've covered a lot and in a very short amount of time actually, and some very important topics, um, for us, the Make Your Mark campaign that we've started here at Alphanumeric it really, like I said, it focuses in on the human interaction, um, how we go about our daily lives, and the professional careers and how we ultimately try to make a mark on what we do every day. So any final thoughts? Any things that, you know, the things that you do obviously you work on a such a wide variety and actually just recently got promoted here at [00:19:00] Alphanumeric, so congratulations, Scott.

[00:19:01] Scott: Thank you. 

[00:19:02] Chris: What do you do to make your mark on, you know, your professional career, your personal life, and any final thoughts too, as well?

[00:19:10] Scott: Yeah, and thank you for that. I appreciate the congratulations and I'm excited for my new position. I think my entire career I've worked from a patient-centric perspective trying to see everything as an advocate for patient health.

[00:19:25] And I'm going to continue along that same philosophy, and it really is who I am, and I'm going to take that skillset that I have learned over many years and tried to employ that in my new job and new role. But I think that from my perspective, and others may agree or not, but some of the most important things that we can do is to help our fellow human beings, especially in their time of need.

[00:19:52] And whether that, in simple ways of just helping someone to understand the why and what we [00:20:00] need to do every day to feel better or to be better, or even so much as to teach them how to use a particular device and to know what happens after, right? So I think that there's a lot of ways in which we can engage with each other and to live happier and healthier.

[00:20:17] Chris: Awesome. Well, thank you Scott. I appreciate all your time. It is very clear to see how much passion and empathy you have towards your job, and I think for me that's honestly, it's so invigorating to see. 

[00:20:29] Scott: Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure being here with you today. 

[00:20:32] Chris: Awesome. Thank you, Scott. 

[00:20:33] Scott: Thank you.

[00:20:37] Chris: Thank you for listening to this episode of Make Your Mark an Alphanumeric podcast. For more information on Alphanumeric, go to www.alphanumeric.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Thank you, and remember to always strive to make your mark.[00:21:00]