In addition to HIPAA concerns, you also need to be aware of how you present yourself “on-camera”.  How you look, sound, and act has a lot to do with the level of confidence staff and patients have in your ability to do your job.  It is also a direct reflection on our brand.

Providing the Best Visual Experience

1. Make sure you have adequate lighting.  Your face should be well lit.  Do not sit with your back in front of a window.  It will silhouette your face.
2. Be mindful of what is behind you on the wall.  No art that may be in any way offensive.  No controversial subject matter.  When in doubt, use a background with no art or messaging.
3. Be quick to smile, and have a great attitude.  Remember, you’re on camera and your face conveys a lot more than you realize!
4. Be appropriately clothed.  This includes wearing pants (even though the top part of your body will be shown).  Is it funny?  Yes.  But it has to be said. 🙂  For real – wear something where the camera can’t see just in case you have to stand up quickly or the computer lid drops.

Providing the Best Audio Experience.

1. Please make sure you are not taking calls in an outside environment where excess noise can impact the call.
2. Keep your pet away from the environment.  There is nothing worse than a dog barking in the background when a nurse is trying to speak with you about a patient.
3. Use a friendly, professional, and approachable tone.
4. Use a friendly, professional, and approachable words.  “Please”, “Thank you” and “I understand” go a long way.
5. Remember that this may be a brand new way of conducting business for staff or a patient.  Do your best to make it a good one.

Keeping Your Voicemail Appropriate.

It is possible if you decline a call accidentally that a client will go to your personal voicemail.  As such, please review your voicemail now.  We ask that you:

• Keep it professional.
• Keep it clean.
• At some point say something along these lines, “If you were directed to my phone by rtNOW, please hang up and immediately call back.  Your call will be redirected to another rtNOW agent.”

Making the Call a Priority.

Imagine this situation.  You are a nurse in a hospital that has contracted with rtNOW.  Our leadership has been on-site training you and your colleagues, encouraging you to make a call for respiratory problems.  But there has been some hesitation to initiate a call due to internal politics, natural hesitation to change, etc.  There is a patient in respiratory distress, and you decide to give it a chance.  So you make the phone call, as directed on the iPad.

It goes to voicemail.

You try again.

It goes to voicemail again.

At this point you decide that it is a waste of time and “doesn’t work.”

To put this all in perspective, that one attempted phone call that was not picked up is reason enough for some hospitals to cancel a contract we have worked for over a year to generate. 

It is imperative to remember that while it is possible you may not take a call for months, it is extremely important that you pick up in a quiet environment immediately when a call does come through.  Be ready for this – always.  With this in mind, we kindly request the following commitments from our agents:

1. Do not put yourself in any position where you are unable to immediately take a phone call and walk quickly to a quiet and secure environment to get information, answer initial questions, and schedule a video chat.
2. Remember that due to the nature of call routing, the person on the phone may have already had 2-3 rings.  You will need to pick up immediately.
3. Please remain within 5 minutes of a secure, HIPAA compliant location where you can take your video call.

We enjoy having incredible agents, and pride ourselves on the ability to give our agents flexibility and extra income for what at many times may not be a lot of work.  Thank you for taking these commitments seriously, and positioning the company and telerespiratory therapists as instantly professional when the calls do come through.