Mastering The Phonebar (EMIS)

Care Navigator and Phonebar Illustration

Up to 20 minutes duration in bite-sized chunks | Online study | Certificate |

4
(20)

Are you making the most of all the features of the Phonebar?

This course will explain how you can maximise the features to suit the needs and demands of your surgery. Helping you optimise patient communications and enhance operational efficiencies within the surgery.

Learning Objectives

By completing this eLearning you will understand:

  • How to find your way around the Phonebar
  • How to make best use of the features in a way that meets your needs
  • The ins and outs of all the contact methods available to you and your patients
  • How to make the most of the patient interactions when using the clinical integration

You will receive your certificate after completing all of the lessons and passing the end-of-course assessment.

What is the Phonebar?

The Phonebar is a small but powerful desktop app that gives access to Surgery Connect features for your staff.  The Phonebar allows access for all telephony functionality to be controlled from the PC screen. For receptionists, it brings up patient records in EMIS or SystmOne as the call arrives. For GPs and clinicians, it allows single-click calling from the patient records, including the option of video calls, SMS messages and requests for photos.

The Phonebar is a communication hub. It can manage appointment lists for telephone triage and can ensure that all communication, including call recordings, can be saved alongside the patient record. 

inbound call icon

Better visibility of inbound calls on the screen with patient identification

Flexible working icon

Facilitates flexible working and device management

Active Patient Icon

Active Patient window allows multiple communication methods with one click

SMS Icon

Appointment list allows bulk SMS of all patients with a heads up or cancellation message

Stat Box icon

Configure and view call Stat Boxes relevant to you as a user right from the Phonebar

Config Icon

Entirely user based allowing each user to set their own preferences wherever they are for optimal working 

What are the features of the Phonebar?

Improved Collaboration

Staff Availability Illustration

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

Centralised Patient Communications

It can be maximised to handle phone and video calls, send SMS, and send photo requests and fully integrates with your clinical system to centralise your patient communications and clinical records.

Smart Clinical Integration

Clinical system integration with the Phonebar allows instant patient identification, users can embed call logs in the patient record, link recordings and click to dial or send SMS. Minimising staff time spent on administrative tasks and calls while improving data quality and compliance.

This course will explain the benefits and then take you through all the options to tailor the configuration of the Phonebar to suit the needs and demands of your surgery. 

User Stories

Listen to David Blake from York Medical Group talk about how they make the most of the Phonebar’s features.

I Icon

This course is designed for users of V7 of the Phonebar and above. If you need to upgrade please view our help guide.

Introducing the Phonebar

These lessons take you through the basics of the Phonebar, starting up, moving, settings, logging on and selecting your call device.

Lessons

Getting Started with the Phonebar Phonebar User Options Phonebar Settings

Using the Phonebar

These lessons cover the primary telephony features of the Phonebar that can be controlled from the PC screen.

Lessons

Voice Calls Video Calls SMS Messages Photo Requests and Photos Call History Stat Boxes

Patient Interactions

Learn how the Phonebar integrates directly with your clinical system, providing a seamless and time-saving way in which clinical and admin staff can access and record patient information during a call.

Lessons

Active Patient Appointments Patient Contact History
Course Assessment Summary and Resources

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) allows users to make voice calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular (or analogue) phone line.

Example Monthly Management ReportDownload

General Terms

Inbound callAn inbound call is a call made into the surgery on one of your inbound telephone numbers
Outbound callAn outbound call is a call made from the surgery’s service (external calls only)
Queued callA queued call are those that joined a Group queue and started the queueing process to speak to one of your staff
Missed callMissed calls are calls that could have been answered by a staff member because it either targeted a user directly or joined a queue for a distribution group. A call does not have to make it to the front of a queue to count as missed, it purely has to join the queue
Abandoned callAbandoned calls are calls that your staff had no chance of answering as they either did not target a user directly or did not enter a queue for a group of users. Situations where this could be the case are when the caller rings in whilst the practice is closed, or the caller does not respond to a menu and hangs up before making a choice
CLIThe CLI is the number displayed in the call ID to the recipient of that call This may be withheld or a telephone number. It also relates to the callers number when they ring into the Surgery Connect service.
Average call durationThis is an average length of a call - Active time on an answered call - this does not include any queue time
Total call durationThis is the actual length of a call including all of the call flow, queueing, talk or hold time that may have occurred
Maximum call concurrencyThis is how many individual calls are happening at the same time

Group/queue terms

Queued for groupThe total number of calls that queued for that group
Answered from queueThe number of calls in the queue that were answered
% answered from queueThe percentage of calls answered from the queue
Missed from queueThis is the total number of calls that joined the queue but did not get answered
% missed from queueThe percentage of calls missed from the queue
Missed from queue under 10 secondsThese are the calls that joined the queue but the caller hung up before 10 seconds of queueing had occurred. These may not want to be considered when assessing call answering efficiency as there was little chance of your staff answering these calls due to the caller hanging up so quickly
Queue durationThe length of time the caller spent in the queue

Patient Callback terms

Calls when patient callback activeThis is the total number of inbound calls whilst patient callback was offered
Calls handled by patient callbackThis is the number of calls that chose the patient callback option
Callbacks madeThis is the number of callback calls made
Callbacks acceptedThis is the number of callback calls that were answered and accepted by the patients
Callbacks rejectedThis is the number of callback calls that were unanswered or cancelled by the patients
Queue timeoutThis is where a maximum queue time has been set on the service and the time in that queue is reached
Caller rang back inThis is where a caller has selected a callback but has rung in and rejoined the queue before they have received a callback from the surgery
Caller rang back in - rejoined queueThis where a caller has selected a callback but has rung in and rejoined the queue before they have received a callback from the surgery
Caller rang back in - hung upThis is where a caller has called in again and hung up
Caller rang back in - cancelledThis is where a caller has a callback booked but has rung in and cancelled that callback when given the option
Time in virtual queueThis is the amount of time the callers would have spent in the queue if they had not selected a callback
Report Column NameExplanation
Hour/DayThe report can be by hour, or by day
Calls When Patient Callback ActivePatient Callback only becomes active when your parameters are met - this tells you how many calls you received overall when those parameters were met
Calls Handled by Patient CallbackPatient Callbacks requested (in that hour/day)
Callbacks MadePatient Callbacks made (in that hour/day)
Callbacks AcceptedSuccessful callbacks (in that hour/day)
Callbacks RejectedCallback rejected
Callback Attempts ExceededCalllback where the attempts were exceeded - not answered
Queue TimeoutWhere any max queue duration settings are met
Callback ResetCallback cancelled due to closure times
Caller Rang Back InCaller rang back in before callback attempted
Caller Rang Back in - Rejoined QueueCaller rang back in before callback attempted and re-joined the queue
Caller Rang Back in - Hung UpCaller rang back in before callback attempted and hung up (stayed in callback queue)
Caller Rang Back in - CancelledCaller rang back in before callback attempted and cancelled the callback request
Total time in virtual queueTotal time all calls in that hour/day were in the virtual queue
Avg time in virtual queueAverage time each call in that hour/day was in the virtual queue
Total Time in real queueIf someone rings back in and rejoins the “real” queue this would be reflected here.
Avg time in real queueIf someone rings back in and rejoins the “real” queue this would be reflected here.