Mountain Manor Treatment

CenterAddictions Treatment and

Mental Health Services

Change Team Project

MountainManor.org

Our Aim: Increase Admissions

GoalWe want to provide a live response to every admission call during business hours.

How and Why We Arrived at Our Goal

• Lack of Availability of Staff for Intakes

• High Voicemail Volume During Business Hours

• Calls Not Returned in a Timely Manner

• Customer Complaints Regarding Service and Appearance

• Customer Hang-Ups

Brainstorming Ideas…

• Provide bluetooth headsets• Creating a triage response

team• Having a sign in/out board for

necessary staff• Hiring part-time staff • Give overtime to staff for

after-hours calls

• Install automated answering system• Train additional staff• Provide company cellphones• Encourage walk-ins Have reception hold call until staff is located• Hire another full-time staff member• Create cross-trained forms

Process for Change

• Trained Staff for the Three-Tiered Response System

– Tier 1: The intake staff will respond to the overhead page for new admission calls.

– Tier 2: Admissions staff (2) will respond to a second call overhead page for admission calls.

– Tier 3: Administration staff will respond to a third call overhead page for admission calls.

Process for Change• Provided Instruction Sheet for Staff to

Process Admission Calls– Detailed description of 3-tiered process and

how and when it should be used.

• Began Call Logs for Messages to Track Missed Calls and Begin Data Collection

Change Effects

• Staff noticed positive trends in calls.– Less Hang-Ups– Less Messages Left During Business Hours

• Other staff felt that the office atmosphere became more professional and more customer-friendly.

• The three-tiered response system will be adopted as a permanent process to respond to admission calls.

Comparative Admission Rates

The change team process began in June 2008.

Graph 1

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75

2007

2008

Number of AdmissionsIn graph 2, we wanted to examine the months affected by the implementation of the change process. We also wanted to see how it compared to the previous year. While June admissions fell by 23.5% from 2007 to 2008, July saw the opposite – a 23.4% growth, followed by an even bigger jump, 38.46%, in August. Finally, September saw a 25.49% growth.

Graph 2

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47

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515252

64

72

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June July August September

2007

2008

• Graph 1: We noticed the continuation of a downward trend in admissions throughout 2008 (pink), bottoming out in June. As our change process took hold, we noticed admissions began to climb in July.

• Graph 2: This graph reflected that the implementation of the three tiered-response system had an immediate effect: the downward trend in admissions halted.

• In August, admissions jumped as the change process became routine. August is usually thought of as a “slow” month as adolescents return to school. However, the change process helped August 2008 top the year’s previous high in admissions of 71, set in January.

Change Effects

Next Step of Change

• We have improved the customer’s waiting experience prior to admission.– Decreased traffic through lobby– Provided fresh fruit and coffee– Provided magazines and will install a television– Kept the lobby clean and aesthetically pleasing

• We also want to create a separate waiting room for adults and for adolescents and their families.

• To have our website provide customers with more pre-visit information.

Our Change TeamGeorge Dunham

Jonathan Gooch

Catrina Scott

Margaret Spencer

Sheryl Tate

Paul Wells(Team Leader)