At our summer conference, we shared the results from our National Healthcare Contact Industry Survey (NHCCIS). After 30+ years, this tri-annual survey remains the most comprehensive assessment of the state of healthcare contact centers. 

This study was organized by a consortium led by our publication. The survey was administered by Greystone.Net. It gathered insights from more than 50 healthcare contact center leaders across the U.S. 

Mike Schneider, co-founder and EVP of Greystone.Net, led a panel discussion to talk about the findings with Danny Fell, SVP of Healthcare BVK; Kathy Divis, president of Greystone.Net; and Amy Zylstra, corporate director of the contact center at University of Pennsylvania Health System. 

Let’s explore a few trends from the survey results: 

The importance of contact centers is increasing

While more than 90% of leaders believe their contact center is strategically important to the overall organization, only about one-third believe their contact center is viewed as a key strategic asset by executive stakeholders. Interestingly, the most cited improvement priority was “being valued for the contribution the contact center makes to the organization.” 

To demonstrate their value to senior leaders, call centers are relying on a combination of caller satisfaction metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). However, the survey also revealed a surprising finding: over half of the responding call centers do not currently measure their return on investment (ROI). 

Divis expressed concern about the declining focus on tracking ROI and urged the industry to “take a step back and decide what those key metrics are.”

“One of the challenges respondents said in the survey was proving to executives that you added value to the organization,” Divis says. “But yet 25% are trying to document revenue or revenue generated. So that’s a big disconnect.”

AI is on the horizon

Only 26% of contact centers currently use AI technology to enhance self-service and caller routing options. However, an additional 40% are actively looking into implementing AI capabilities. Potential use cases include: quickly answering routine inquiries, supporting appointment scheduling and providing symptom evaluation and routing clinical calls. The survey comments indicate integrating AI for self-service, along with using omnichannel platforms and the cloud, are top priorities.

Divis said she thinks AI is going to impact staffing levels, but it remains to be seen if it goes up or down.

“If you think back to the days when the web was first coming into healthcare, we were convinced that contact center calls were going to decrease because people were going to do more on their own,” Divis said. “But tell me, how many of us out there have seen a decrease in calls because of the web?” 

Zylstra says patients are contacting the hospital in a variety of ways: through web forms, the patient portal and social media. 

“I think healthcare is a very high-touch industry,” Zylstra says. “In other industries, people might be more willing to communicate in a chat or through a website, but when patients are worried or anxious, they want to speak with someone.”  

Remote work and training is an area of focus

The shift to remote call center staffing accelerated during the pandemic and shows no signs of reversing. More than 70% of healthcare contact centers now have staff working at least partially remotely, compared to only about 30% pre-pandemic. This transition has increased the importance of training programs, especially for remote non-clinical staff. Finding and retaining quality staff remains one of the biggest challenges facing call centers.

Non-voice channels are rapidly expanding

While inbound and outbound voice calling is still the primary mode of communication, around 40% of respondents indicated their call center handles website/email inquiries and provides support to patient portal users. Roughly one-third offer telemedicine virtual care support. Text and video chat support, along with social media response, are less widely adopted but growing channels.

We extend our sincere thanks to Greystone.Net for their partnership, and to LVM Systems for their sponsorship and unwavering support for this survey initiative.