Lake County Health Department Moves to the Cloud in 48 Hours

More than 1,000 professionals work at the Lake County Health Department to support the daily mission of promoting the health and well-being of all who live, work, and play in Lake County. An accredited public health department, the Lake County Health Department operates several contact centers, including:

• The Patient Access Center, which serves as the primary patient contact center for all inbound communication for medical, mental, and behavioral health services
• An IT help desk that serves internal customers
• A COVID-19 hotline that serves hundreds of callers per day, fielding questions from the public inquiring about pandemic- related issues COVID-19 Calls Overwhelm

COVID-19 Calls Overwhelm the On-Premises System

The Lake County Health Department was using an on-premises contact center system and was in the initial stages of a five-year digital transformation strategy. However, when the pandemic hit, the normal intake of around
50 daily calls from the public suddenly spiked to more than 700.
“We had a gradual plan to move to the cloud, and really didn’t want to do a lift-and-shift approach as so many others have done. Our goal was to improve things through all the benefits of the cloud,” says Jefferson McMillan-Willhoit, Director of Health Informatics and Technology for the Lake County Health Department. “Then, the COVID-19 pandemic happened and basically overnight, we had to send staff home. We suddenly went from being a very in-person environment to almost entirely remote. That definitely accelerated our five-year plan.”
The Lake County Health Department needed to shift to the cloud. It had already implemented Microsoft Teams as its collaboration solution, which also inspired the move to the cloud.
“We’re unusual in that the people answering our COVID-19 hotline were not traditional customer service agents,” explains McMillan-Willhoit. “They were healthcare workers: nurses, physicians, and other staff. At one point, we even had executives responding to the flood of calls. They needed something that was easy and flexible enough so they could work from home and still be efficient.”

Focus on Ease of Use and UC Integration with Microsoft Teams

McMillan-Willhoit and his team selected the Five9 Intelligent Cloud Contact Center for its ease of use, pre-built integration with Microsoft Teams, scalability to meet high call volumes, and capability for teams to work remotely. Due to the sudden spike in call volumes during the onset of the pandemic, they needed to implement the solution within 48 hours.

“While I wouldn’t recommend a 48-hour go-live, it worked for us,” says McMillan-Willhoit. “Our users were okay with it because Five9 is easy to use. That was highly important because most people answering the hotline were healthcare professionals used to being in the field.”

Shortly after the Five9 implementation for its COVID-19 hotline, the Lake County Health Department also began using Five9 technology for the Patient Access Center, which fields around 6,000 calls per month, and its IT help desk contact centers.

Lake County Health Department’s contact centers take advantage of the Five9
UC integration with Microsoft Teams. For instance, agents often need to transfer a caller from the Patient Access Center to a more specialized subject matter expert. They can check experts who use Teams to see if someone is available, then transfer the call to the expert or conference them in. They also use Teams messaging to interact with other agents, supervisors, and subject matter experts.

“The Five9 UC integration with Microsoft Teams has been invaluable,” explains McMillan-Willhoit. “The biggest part about the whole pandemic has been communication. Without communication, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do. The community has been served by being able to call one place, as we get as much information as possible for them.”

Streamlined Workflows, Better Flexibility, and Plans to Expand

Now that call volumes have stabilized, the Lake County Health Department is putting more focus on refining workflows and the Five9 platform to leverage its full value to the broader organization. They’re reimagining both the patient/public and agent experiences.

“The Five9 platform is so flexible, once we got into it, we could see a multitude of possibilities behind it,” says McMillan-Willhoit. “When we brought the Patient Access Center into Five9, we realized our call flows weren’t as efficient as they could be. A cloud-based solution gave us more flexibility to look at our workflows without being constrained by the limitations of an on-premises system. The cloud provides so many more options and the flexibility to make changes to improve.”

The Lake County Health Department is now considering implementing the Five9 Adapter for Salesforce for its CRM. The move would consolidate information to help agents utilize the power of real-time customer data. McMillan-Willhoit’s team is also exploring bilingual options for its IVR and has begun making outbound calls. “The beauty of Five9 is that we can continually change it as our needs arise and as we evolve,” he says.

Moving to the cloud also enabled the Lake County Health Department to expand its volunteer program, since people no longer have to go through a badge/network access protocol when they work remotely.

Lake County Health Department agents continue to work from home and the department anticipates they will continue to do so indefinitely. It’s also looking
at how other Lake County departments can use Five9.

“As a government entity, we’re always looking for ways to stretch taxpayer dollars. Remote work is one way we can do that,” says McMillan-Willhoit. “A move to the cloud often seems so huge, but when the technology is really easy to use, the move doesn’t seem that big. Five9 was so intuitive that our agents did not even notice the technology. That’s what you want to happen. The focus is on reimagining the patient and public experience.”