Focusing on the Patient Experience

Chicago, IL – February 2, 2005 – Viasant, a nationwide provider of facility management solutions, today announced the successful implementation of its Sentact Customer Care System in Methodist Hospitals of Gary and Merrillville, Indiana. As part of Methodist Hospitals (Methodist) continued focus on service excellence, Methodist now utilizes Sentact to enhance management of patient inquiries and centralize corresponding communication among hospital staff.

Methodist Hospitals has been a leader in the provision of quality healthcare in Northwest Indiana since 1923 with two full-service hospital campuses, Northlake in Gary and Southlake in Merrillville, and a combined bed capacity of more than 600. Methodist services are also available at their two-offsite facilities, Methodist Hospitals Midlake Campus, located in Gary and their Primary Care Associates medical office, located in Merrillville. Methodist opened its Midlake Campus in 2003 and their goal in creating this facility is to provide Gary and surrounding communities with a comprehensive outpatient center for various rehabilitation and medical services. Its Primary Care Associates facility provides the community with the convenience of seeing various physicians in one central location. To remain in a position of growth, Methodist strives to attract world-class physicians through the accessibility of advanced technology and facilities and continuing to build upon services such as their Gamma Knife Center. The hospital is also involved in several joint ventures with their physicians to enhance the accessibility of services. Some of their recent joint ventures include a new urgent care facility and an ambulatory surgery center and medical office building.

During the forty-five day implementation period, Methodist and Viasant teams worked together to tailor Sentact to support the critical elements of Methodist’s business practices. Call management, escalation procedures, document management and reporting were all tailored to meet Methodist service delivery objectives, while adhering to critical budgeting requirements. Further, Viasant’s expert staff was able to sync historical concerns into Sentact to centralize all history for more accurate reporting.

By evaluating the critical patient feedback captured in Sentact, Methodist will gain additional valuable insight into performance-enhancement opportunities. “We are very excited that Sentact has a role in Methodist’s support services organization”, said Shirley Escober, a Viasant partner in charge of the Sentact service portfolio. “Methodist’s focus on patient care provided the Viasant and Methodist teams with an opportunity to work together to take patient satisfaction to a new level.”

About Methodist Hospitals
Methodist is a community-based healthcare system that has been in existence since 1923. Methodist continues to provide a sense of community and compassion for patients, staff, and physicians. The hospital is positioned for a future-oriented vision offering new services where there are voids and enhancing current clinical service lines and services. As a premier health system in Northwest Indiana, Methodist continues to enhance its ability to establish partnerships to offer employees, patients, and physicians the best possible healthcare services in the region. The vision of Methodist Hospitals is to be the best place for employees to work, the best place for patients to receive care and the best place for physicians to practice medicine. (http://www.methodisthospitals.org/)

About VIASANT
VIASANT is an industrial maintenance and management company providing industrial cleaning and maintenance application services (http://sentact.com) for enterprises nationwide. With offices in Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Southern California, the Company brings a suite of services to maintain and improve operational efficiencies, reduce operating costs and increase the production performance of our clients’ facilities. Viasant’s customers include mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies in the food processing, chemical, energy, healthcare, real estate and heavy manufacturing industries. (http://www.viasant.com)




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