Optimize staffing costs and improve patient care in healthcare contact centers

It’s already begun. If you listen closely during your daily commute, on Zoom calls, or on a quick trip to the grocery store, you’ll hear the sniffles and coughs that signal the start of flu season.

But for healthcare operations that leverage contact centers, these sounds are a reminder of the perfect storm of staffing challenges approaching as they await the influx of patients seeking care during this time of year.

Seasonal challenges are compounded by ongoing staff shortages and budget constraints, all further intensified by the increasing prevalence of patients living with chronic diseases. Today, a large proportion of the US population, or 133 million Americans, live with at least one chronic condition and 40% of adults suffer from two or more. This widespread health crisis has led to a rise in both patient call volumes and the complexity of inquiries, requiring more specialized and highly trained contact center agents. 

Additionally, healthcare providers are under growing pressure to meet higher patient expectations for personalized care and, with that, accommodate the multi-channel (call, email, chat, text, app, etc.) nature of today’s communication preferences.

Unpredictability means balancing and juggling

The greatest challenge, especially this time of year, is the variable nature of call volumes. While seasonal flu usually peaks from late fall into winter, there is little certainty about how minimal or severe the impact on contact centers will be.

Unpredictability in the weather can mean snow, ice, and freezing rain, which can result in more accidents leading to a surge in calls related to emergency care, scheduling surgeries, and managing post-accident recovery appointments. Staff members themselves are not immune to catching illnesses or being involved in accidents, adding further complications for call-center operators trying to manage and plan staff schedules.

At the same time, toward the end of the year, contact centers are inundated with calls from patients trying to maximize their healthcare benefits before their insurance deductibles reset. Elective procedures, routine appointments, and insurance-related queries skyrocket, adding to the complexity of predicting call volumes.

To make a difficult situation worse, many contact center employees wish to take vacation and leave around holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year. This combination of high patient demand and decreased staff availability creates a logistical nightmare for contact center managers who must balance adequate staffing with budget constraints.

Consequences of understaffing

One of the most significant risks hospital contact centers face during peak periods is understaffing. When agents are stretched too thin, the effects can be felt throughout the entire healthcare system.

Burnout among contact center agents is on the rise according to a recent study from CMP Research. Healthcare contact centers are available to patients 24/7— even during flu season — so agents face long shifts and back-to-back days handling high call volumes from distressed patients. Without enough personnel to share the workload, agents are more likely to experience exhaustion, stress, and emotional fatigue.

Burnout increases agent turnover, which not only disrupts operations but also raises costs related to recruiting, onboarding, and training new employees. In a hospital contact center, these costs can quickly add up, especially when considering the highly specialized nature and skills required to deal with patients across multiple channels.

Inadequate staffing also directly impacts patient experience. Patients expect quick, accurate responses, especially when they need medical information or are trying to schedule important appointments. Long waiting times and rushed conversations lead to patient frustration and, in some cases, an incorrect or incomplete information exchange. This can even negatively affect a hospital's reputation if patients feel their concerns aren't being addressed promptly.

A study from the National Library of Medicine showed that decreased telephone waiting times are associated with improved patient perceptions of urgent care. The report goes on to suggest that “managing the promptness of service for patients calling for appointments and medical questions is likely to be an important component of a successful strategy to improve … satisfaction measures.”

Given that patient experience and satisfaction is increasingly tied to funding and performance metrics, poor service in the contact center can have far-reaching and lasting negative implications across a hospital or healthcare organization.

Under (budget) pressure

However, on the other hand, overstaffing during quieter periods can be financially detrimental to the organization, adding further pressure to contact center managers. Labor costs are one of the biggest expenses for hospital contact centers, and when there are too many agents scheduled for shifts that don’t match patient demand, unnecessary payroll costs pile up. Given the tight budgets hospitals operate under, especially post-COVID, keeping employment costs under control is essential.

Also, contact centers that heavily rely on agency or contract workers or pay overtime to regular staff during peak times can see their workforce costs spike unpredictably, creating further financial strain. Contact center managers are therefore under increasing pressure to balance the critical nature of improving patient care and experience while optimizing and maintaining operational costs.

Quietly quitting spreadsheets

Attempting to manage this perfect storm of staffing challenges is a constant headache, especially because capacity planners in many hospital contact centers augment their workforce management technologies with spreadsheet-based workforce planning, which is prone to human error, difficult to manage, and reactive rather than proactive. 

Manually inputting forecasts, depending on outdated historical data, and making staffing decisions based on assumptions rather than real-time data can lead to inefficiencies and costly mistakes. And that’s not forgetting the rigidity and difficulty of managing multiple databases and data sources that need to be tapped before inputting into spreadsheets and the lack of ability to forecast.

All of these complexities make the case for moving beyond spreadsheet-based workforce planning to a more sophisticated, data-driven approach highly compelling.

Understanding the “what-ifs”

Modern workforce planning tools and technologies can help contact center managers leverage historical data, predictive analytics, and real-time updates to forecast demand more precisely. This means analyzing historical call volume trends during flu seasons, bad weather conditions, and insurance-related inquiries, alongside other external data, to predict staffing needs with precision.

Creating plans and models that are quick and simple to update and adapt also means contact center managers can rapidly run “what-if” scenarios. This allows them to simulate different staffing models based on varying factors — such as an unexpected viral outbreak or an extreme weather event — and adjust their scheduling strategies accordingly. Ideal for understanding and anticipating the impact of “black swan” events, something we’re all familiar with these days.

By planning and preparing for different scenarios, hospital contact centers can ensure they always have the right balance of full-time, part-time, and on-call staff ready to respond to changes in patient demand. And, by aligning staffing with anticipated demand, skillfully avoiding both under- and over-staffing. 

Replacing “no” with “know”

Hospital contact centers face complex challenges, particularly in the winter months. Balancing the need for sufficient staffing with the goal of controlling costs is no easy task, and relying on manual capacity planning tools like spreadsheets leaves too much room for error and lacks the flexibility and agility healthcare contact center managers and operations leaders require. 

Remove the guesswork from workforce planning by adopting an advanced approach that uses predictive analytics and real-time data that empowers contact center managers to optimize costs by meeting demand fluctuations, reducing payroll budgets, and avoiding overstaffing.

Effective workforce planning technologies help ensure hospital contact centers have the right agents in the right place at the right time to provide patients with care and support that meets and even exceeds their expectations. Most importantly, this leads to higher satisfaction rates and happier, healthier patients who are more confident in their course of care and less likely to require follow-up contact.