October 18, 2018
GP phone home
Since 2016, we have been working with Bistech, our delivery partner, to implement a new telephony solution across GP practices in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG). There are now 59 practice sites in BNSSG live with this system (with 6 more set to launch soon), which translates to an amazing 1910 licensed Bistech handsets now in practices across the area. Each year, these practices receive 3.9 million phone calls and make 1.9 million outgoing calls – which makes a total of 5.8 million calls handled on an annual basis.
The opportunity for practices to access our funded telephony solution will close in early 2019. By this time, we hope that an additional 21 sites will also have signed up, making a total of 80. The Bistech platform offers a number of important benefits to practices. The telephony system is scalable and resilient, which allows practices to share calls across different sites and can facilitate new models of care. This can also improve operational efficiency and workload management. Not only do practices access funding to support capital costs, but they also receive new, fit for purpose technology and usually save money on outbound calls. The large number of users across BNSSG also means that One Care and Bistech can offer support and development to those using this system (such as reports, call analysis, staff utilisation).
We have had some great feedback from the practices who have had the system for a while, with practices praising the value for money, improved functionality and support during implementation.
For these practices who have already migrated to Bistech, we are now be focusing on supporting them to make the best use of it, through a telephony optimisation review. This will include sharing best practice, looking at how the system could support different ways of working and developing practice-focused reporting and analytics. We’ve also produced a number of training guides for practices.
We’re really excited and proud of what we’ve been able to achieve, and look forward to continuing to work with practices over the coming months and years to ensure we use this future-proof technology to support resilience and transformation in general practice.
