Business Communication Trends Paper

Axia College of University of Phoenix
Instructor:

Pediatrics Associates is a doctor’s offices that treats children from the ages of newborn to 17 years of age. We have to have communication skills that are effective to compete with other offices in their area and to keep the doctor’s office profitable. Our day-to-day activities require communication and effective forms of communication for example: scheduling appointments, our phone staff must be able to have good listening skills, good spelling, and be able to determine what the parent is calling for and know medical terminology. In addition, somewhat be able to asset what could be wrong with patient and in some case determine whether the parent should bring the child into the office or go straight to the emergency room.
Our phone staff also has to use those same communication skills to cancel appointments and the communication between parent and Medical Assistant (MA) is vital to be able to relay a problem list of what is wrong with the patient and what their visit is for to the doctor. Whatever information is gathered by the MA has to be accurate, because the information that is given to the doctor helps in the diagnosis of the patient. The doctor then must then tell the MA what form of treatment to perform on the patient.
The technologies we use in our office on day-to-day basis to make the day flow proficiently are as follows: a paging system that anyone can hear from anywhere within the office. We use emails that can be sent to and from all 24 offices, usually letting other offices know their phone system is down, or they are in a meeting so do not transfer calls, and corporate sends emails that are informative. We also use nontechnology methods of communication such as taking messages, writing notes, verbal, we use different color flags on patient room letting the MA’s know what needs to be done in that particular room for the patient.
Pediatrics Associates uses the calls centers in each office to assist on the quality and customers’ needs. One way we focus on quality and customers needs is through our phone system, all calls are recorded and timed. Recording calls allows Pediatrics Associates to use bad calls and good calls to train incoming phone staff, in addition, help current phone staff personnel with any issue corporate thinks they handle right or wrong. Also we time calls, if a call is in the red this mean the caller has either been on hold to long or the MA has taken too long to handle the call and this can be seen by the MA by looking at a large computer screen over head. So this computer screen assist the MA’s with making the parents of the patients calling into the office efficient and quick.
Teamwork is very important at Pediatric Associates our goal is to get the patient in and out in a timely manner and make sure the parent is pleased with the service received. In addition, we want make sure the parents calling into the office for appointment, triage, and general information are pleased also; this is done by all staff working together. First front office staff must great all parents and patients as they come through the doors and check them in and if the check person is busy or away from the front desk or on the phone. Then whoever is available or sees the parent not being helped in the front office must assist that parent, whether it is checkout personnel, phone staff, office manager, ward clerk. The same team work applies when the phones are ringing, if an MA cannot get to her phone for whatever reason another phone staff personnel must pick up her line and assist the parent. They can also pick up the line and ask the parent can the hold please and let client know someone will be with them shortly.
The same rules apply for the back office each doctor is assigned an MA and if that MA is busy working with another patient and another patient needs to be brought back to a room then it is the responsibility of whatever MA is free at that time to bring the next patient back to the next available room for the doctor.
In conclusion without the proper form of communications the organization would definitely become inefficient. The efficiency of our systems allows us to communicate on certain levels that are comparable for our clients as well as our staff.

Reference:

Locker, K., & Kienzler, D. (2008). Business and Administrative Communication (8th edition). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Retrieved December 19, 2010 from,
https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/classroom/ic/classroom.aspx