From left to right, lead med techs Ian Quasney and Tora Ruffin, and supervisor Kevin Martin.
The Pathology Customer Service Division is the main communication center for the Department of Pathology. We interact with the customers of our department that include, but are not limited to, physicians, nursing staff, patients, internal staff, and staff from all of our affiliate locations. This division consists of 19 highly trained employees who are professional, courteous and eager to assist with the needs of our customers. We are open seven days a week during the hours of 6:00 a.m. – 12:00 midnight.
From left to right, customer service reps, Toni Alexander, Shannon Green, Tasha Rose, Adriana Moscoso, Martha Williams, Lorretta Gladden-Reddy, and Maggie Shearin
Customer Service has multiple functions which include: communication support; test send-outs; specimen registration for certain outreach locations; the courier distribution hub for specimens coming from outside of the Hospital; and processing specimens for study coordinators. For our communication support of the Department, we answer approximately 6,000 phone call inquiries a month, and make approximately 7,000 outgoing calls per month for the Core Laboratory. We also fax close to 100 lab reports a day to providers. The inquiry calls are from customers looking for lab results or clarification, questions about specific tests or required collection containers, requests for a faxed copy of a patient’s report, timed draw requests, add-on requests to existing specimens, as well as other various requests. The outgoing calls placed by the Customer Service staff mainly consist of Critical Action Value (CAV) notification to the ordering provider, specimen cancellations, lab resident consultation, and a follow-up call on a previous inquiry. We call approximately 2,000 CAVs per month. For the incoming calls, we receive approximately 1,200 add-on requests and 500 timed draw requests per month.
From left to right, customer service reps, Gwen Reese, Latoya Henson, and Barbara Bumpass
One of our other main duties include our send-out area which sends test requests to reference labs when the testing is not performed at JHML. We send out approximately 250 tests per day and monitor the return of the results.
We are constantly looking at how we can improve the service to our customers. Our latest project is a collaborative effort by staff members to reduce the wait time for our callers which is a big component of customer satisfaction. We have also begun to more closely monitor interactions with customers to identify any areas of communication skills that we need to improve.
We are ready to ready to meet the expectations of our customers with fast, friendly, accurate, and informative service. We look forward to servicing your needs from the Johns Hopkins Department of Pathology.
Sincerely,
Kevin Martin, MT(ASCP)
Supervisor, Johns Hopkins Pathology Customer Service