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Hello and welcome to Healthcare Insider, a sponsored content podcast series from modern healthcare Custom Media. I'm your host, Camille Baxter. From online portals to text messaging to email, there are many options for health systems to connect with consumers. However, one longstanding form of communication remains critical. The telephone. And yet Americans answer less than half of the phone calls they receive on their mobile phones. As a result, health systems may be missing out on crucial opportunities to connect with patient's. We recently spoke with James Gar Vert, senior vice president and general manager. Communications Solutions at New Star New Star is a leader in the field of responsible identity resolution. Today we are focusing on why the telephone is still a critical communication tool for health systems. James has more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, and he helps manage and provide strategic direction for new stars global communications offerings. James is a graduate of Villanova University, where he completed his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. Now let's dive into our conversation with James and hear how healthcare systems can take full advantage of the telephone to communicate with patients during the Covid 19 pandemic and in the future. Hi, James. Welcome back. Thanks for being here again today. It's great to be back meal before we get started. I'd like to review a few points for our listeners to set the stage for our discussion today. In 2020 voice call traffic increased 184%. Each American received an average of 144 spam calls in 2020 58% of which were fraudulent. 85% of people think unidentified calls could be fraud. In our last interview, you discuss the rapid shift to telehealth and the importance of reaching customers and of incorporating branding into that whole experience. Today, we're talking more about that long standing technology called the telephone. Why is the phone still a critical tool for health systems? It's a critical tool because a majority of people still prefer phone calls for urgent notifications or to discuss complex issues or sensitive information such as their medical information. And it's also one that's still 88% of appointments with health care providers are scheduled by the phone, and so healthcare firms that we've surveyed said that outbound calling increased by almost 77% in 2020 part of that due to the pandemic. And that's going to continue into 2021 when the expected increase is going to be close to 68%. And so that is what makes the telephone a critical tool for health systems to still consider. You know, that is so interesting with all of the technology that we have available to us, that the telephone is still the largely preferred mode of communication, especially for sensitive information and urgent notifications. Even though we have all kinds of technology available to connect us during this difficult and remote time, it can sometimes feel like we're not fully connecting. Why is it challenging to get patients on the phone even when we're all constantly connected to our devices? And what lessons have you learned from the pandemic? Camille, has you talked about at the beginning of this? There are significant challenges due to illegal robo calling that creates multiple challenges than in the Voice Channel for the health industry. They're caught up in those broader structural issues in the Voice Channel and so specific to hospital systems and health care groups. The onslaught of covid related spoofing and phishing has been unprecedented. We've seen many scams and fraud tied to contact tracing fake vaccine sales, stimulus packages, even small business loans and such tied into healthcare vertical. But hospitals as well have been just deluged with unlawful robocalls, including social engineering calls designed to steal sensitive information, as well as phishing schemes that rely on caller ID spoofing to exploit victims. It's been unprecedented. Levels of apprehension and mistrust is what's been created because of this. So if patients don't know who's calling, they won't answer the call when you think about what the FCC and even the government has done in mandating call authentication, the carriers have also implemented free tools to their customers to help better block and label suspected bad calls. But one of the negatives that have actually come from that is that at times, legitimate good calls from healthcare organizations are being tagged as fraudulent or scam calls, further eroding the trust. It really is easy to understand why people are so hesitant to answer the phone these days if they don't know who's calling. I think we can all sympathize with how overwhelming this must be for patients and for health care system leaders. Patients might be uncertain about whether it's actually their provider calling them, and it really impacts health systems efforts to get patients back into their facilities. So what concrete steps do you suggest our listeners take to reassure patients and encourage them to pick up the phone? It's important to remember that every individual in some form and fashion is a patient and patient's really can trust who's calling. They'll pick up, they want the good calls. And we has an overall industry. Need those good calls to get through? We need our doctors and emergency health care workers to be able to reach us. We need people to answer the phone when government agencies are trying to reach them regarding contact tracing or covid 19 vaccinations as an example. And so it is important for health care providers and executives to know that they actually have tools out there to help protect their patients and help improve how they reach their patients. And one of those ways that is coming out that's been very promising is a solution called brain and call display. This is an opportunity to leverage the voice infrastructure to be able to push more information when you're making an outbound call to your patients and your customers. This is where you can display your full name and, in some cases, your logo as well as a call authentication display to provide more trust in that. And what has really been promising associated with this technology is that the consumers really seem to take this on very well where we've seen first call attempts raised by 56% improvement on those answer rates. I mean, just really amazing stats to see when you improve that engagement between you and your customer. But Brandon calling is just part of a journey that organizations should be taken to restore the trust with their patients with their customers, to increase their outbound calling answer rates, protect their brand and ultimately enhance that customer experience. So to learn more about that, new stars set up trusted call Resource center. It is a great place for enterprises and health care providers to go to to better understand what it's going to take. And so we've outlined seven steps. We also offer an assessment that helps you determine your organization status in delivering that trusted engagement with your customers. Resources like that are so important right now so that providers can really show their patients that they can trust the calls that they're receiving from that system. These are very uncertain times, and providers are even more focused right now on building trust and credibility with their patients. It's really the bedrock of the physician patient relationship. What role do you see the phone channel playing in that effort? And how can it be leveraged to improve overall patient experience? There's no doubt that the phone is a critical touch point in the patient experience for just day to day interactions, as well as sensitive health discussions to be made. The patient experience is so important that the majority of patients say they change providers if they could be sure that they have a better experience. So health care providers can now represent themselves more faithfully, increased customer trust and drive up answer rates by displaying more information. Almost 90% of consumers said they are more likely to answer a call if they can be certain of the other parties. Identity. Brandon calling helps healthcare providers protect and promote their brand and provide a more modern experience. It is definitely something that each healthcare providers should be looking into as part of that journey to improve the experience with their customers. It really sounds like Brandon Call Display goes a long way to taking such a long standing tool the telephone and modernizing it for our current times so that people can have trust and confidence in who's calling them on the other end. Finally, restoring trust in the phone channel can not only greatly impact our pandemic response and vaccine distribution, but it can also set us up for much faster communications for future pandemics or natural disasters. Can you talk a little bit about how providers can help set that in motion as we've talked about illegal robocalls impact public health and safety? If healthcare providers can't successfully reach out to their patients? This is an issue that crosses all industries, and there's momentum in the voice ecosystem to solve this. As far as future disasters go, we've seen the issues with wildfires in California, where people in danger could not be reached in Texas recently, where energy officials didn't get a chance to warn residents as well as with the contact tracing associated with the Covid 19 pandemic. And now we have the issues with vaccines. We want to get more vaccines in the arms of the individuals out there, but we need to be able to reach the underserved or the elderly who leverage, though the phone channel is their main means of being able to be contacted. So as we're taking this opportunity where we're addressing these illegal robocalls, we also have the opportunity to modernize that phone channel, putting on part with the digital experience that consumers want. Health care providers can now connect with their patients safely and effectively over the phone chain. And we'll also be better prepared for future issues that come up, including additional pandemics or natural disasters that are there where communication is vital to truly saving lives. We at New Star are excited about helping to solve these challenges, with solutions such as Brandon calling It is this opportunity where healthcare organizations and providers should really be looking to what more they can do to help engage with their patients. These are such important resources and tools for providers and health systems to be aware of thank you for continuing to shed light on the critical role of the telephone in the delivery of health care and emergency services. Thanks, Camille. Thank you, James Garver. It again. James is the senior vice president and general manager of Communications Solutions at NeuStar. For more information, email. Caller ID at new star dot biz or visit New Star and the U. S. T a r dot com. I'm your host Camille Baxter. Look for more episodes of healthcare Insider at modern healthcare dot com slash podcasts or subscribe at Apple podcasts or your preferred podcaster. Thanks again for listening. Yeah.