RelateCare are excited and proud to take part in the celebrations for NAHAM’s (National Association for Access Managers) Patient Access Week April 4th– 8th.
Patient Access Week is always a special time in the year for RelateCare, and this year more than ever.
NAHAM’s annual Access Week is a “long-standing, annual tradition to raise awareness and celebrate Patient Access contributions. Established in 1982, Patient Access Week is a celebration of the people in Patient Access profession. The date marks the anniversary of the founding of the National Association of Healthcare Access Management (NAHAM), the only national professional organization dedicated to promoting excellence within the field. Each year, the celebrations span the entire week surrounding the anniversary, April 5.”
RelateCare and Patient Access
If there was a single phrase to encapsulate the multi-faceted service range of RelateCare, it would be Patient Access. Whether it is scheduling, telehealth, revenue cycle and referrals, or contact center optimization, we are always finding ways to support patients to access the care they need when they need it.
This past year has proven that more than ever, with challenges to healthcare provision and disruption to workplaces across the world. But challenges are also opportunities, and through ups and downs we have gone from strength to strength thanks to the commitment of our patient access representatives and scheduling agents, many of whom made the shift to a work-from-home model, while others continued to come to work to connect with patients.
Resilience
The theme for this years Access Week is Resilience Through Adversity, which could not be more appropriate after what we at RelateCare experienced this past year.
Resilience is capacity of a system, enterprise, or person to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances.
Resilient people build resilient systems. Resilient people and systems thrive and fulfill their core purpose in the face of obstacles, threats, challenges, or pandemics.
The resilience of our staff was what got us through such a difficult time. In the first place, the speed and agility shown in our efforts to transfer over 300 patient access representatives to a work-from-home model was remarkable. It meant that while healthcare across the world was in turmoil, we were able to continue to offer support and guidance to patients and providers when they needed it most.
And further, the way we have adapted to these new conditions has been truly impressive. Working together across distance, time-zones and locations is difficult enough, but doing so while working-from-home is challenging in new and unforeseeable ways. Our Employee Engagement Committee has develop a arrange of innovative and creative processes for ensuring that all staff members feel included and connected to the wider team. Our Workvivo internal social platform hosts groups, conversations, competitions, to ensure there is constant communication between team members.
We like to think about resilience as a cultivated skill, not a fixed reserve. It doesn’t run out. We can learn it and achieve it. Think of resilience like a muscle. Like a muscle, we have to use it and train it to define and strengthen it.
At RelateCare we are proud of the resilience of our patient access teams and leaders. We work to cultivate this sense so that we always know our core purpose: which is to provide the very best patient access support to the patients and providers we work with. We believe we can make things better and are always willing to learn from challenges, just like this year has proved.
Happy Patient Access Week to all our friends and colleagues out there!
