The main benefits of cloud telephony are virtually limitless inbound and outbound calls, the ability to work from anywhere, call recordings and full access to all aspects of the system to make real time updates as well as full reporting suite

Call capacity was a big issue but virtually limitless inbound calls means greater patient experience. They will never receive the engaged tone again, even when calling the practice at busy times. The phone system answers every call, reminds all patients that calls are recorded and can offer bespoke information and menu options

Limitless outbound calls means that even at busy times users can still dial out regardless of how many inbound calls are ongoing

Call queuing positions are also part of the inbound call experience so patients always know where they are in the queue and that they are going to be answered

Additionally, practices can offer the Patient Callback as a feature that allows patients to queue virtually, they retain their position in the queue without having to wait on the call, the system calls them back when they reach queue position 1

This offers both fairness and assistance to PAYG mobile users

The ability to work from anywhere means users can login to the phone system from anywhere (provided they have internet) and make and receive calls as if they are working in the practice

Users can also choose to make and receive calls from their desk phone when in practice, their softphone whether they are in practice or working remotely or their own personal device

Again they can choose any call device regardless of whether they are working remotely or in practice

Cloud telephony coupled with clinical integration additionally includes; patient ID popups and click to call. Integration works both in practice and when working remotely

When patients call in they are identified by their telephone number and the patient record automatically opens on the PC screen so the staff member has the clinical record in front of them

To communicate with patients, from the screen Users can click to call, SMS, send photo requests or video call the patient. Users can also access patient contact history

The Surgery Connect system is entirely calendar controlled. Opening times, closing times, lunchtimes and departmental opening times are set and the phone system works accordingly

This means nobody is responsible for turning phones off and on again. Greetings and closed messages can be updated and call forwarding can be invoked for out of hours service if required

Calendars can also be made for a group, for example if your Prescription line has different opening times, it can have its own calendar to support this

Using a menu helps filter your patient calls into appropriate call Groups. When the caller selects a menu option for example, 2 for Prescriptions, the caller will go through the that Group to be answered

You can also set menu options up for information messages to reduce you calls to you main Groups, for example if you want to let patients know about Flu Clinics

All menu options are fully customisable, with the ability to edit prompts, and turn them on and of when required

Groups can have several Users. When a call goes through to a group it will hunt for the next available user, to make sure the call gets answered as quickly as possible

Groups can have their own short dial (internal) number, have Auto Step In activated and can be fine tuned by a Supervisor, including call targeting

Any changes to the system and your call flows, whether that be to numbers, users, messages (prompts), calendars, queue experience etc can be made by Supervisors in real time

Surgery Connect is an entirely user based system so each staff member, regardless of their role, is a user on the system

A Users internal (short dial) number follows them wherever they log in, so you are always targeting the person, not the phone, this enables hot desking and working remotely

Users can be individuals and members of a group or groups. They can be contacted internally and can be allocated direct lines for direct external calls if required

Users can step themselves in and out of groups to handle calls at busy times

Alternatively Auto Step In can be used to ensure that at busy times more users are automatically targeted with inbound calls to assist with bringing queues down

Users can call one another, call groups and call externally directly from an onscreen directory. The screens also show which users are available and/or busy

All calls to known numbers can be made from a single click on the screen, no more manual dialling or the potential for miss dials

Conference calling between three parties is also available via the deskphones

All calls are recorded and can be filed to the patient record if required. Call recording can also be turned off during a call if requested by the patient