Telecommunications Center Rep

To provide excellent customer service to all VCU Health customers, potential customers and team members. All calls will be customer centered with a focus on patient and team member safety. Essential duties of the position include, but are not limited to, dispatch of all VCU Health emergency response teams, answering service functions for all VCU Health ancillary clinics, paging of VCU Health physicians and other on call team members and general information regarding patients, team members and services provided by VCU Health. Demonstrates compliance with all local, state and federal laws and regulations, including The Joint Commission standards, HIPAA and VCU Health policies and procedures.

Essential Job Functions

Performance Expectation: Emergency Communications  

Will serve as dispatcher for all of VCU Health’s emergency response teams including, but not limited to, all teams outlined in the VCU Health Emergency Operations Plans (Dr. Red, HICS Team, Hostage Situation Team, etc.) and VCU Health’s Responding to Medical Emergencies policy (Code Blue, Trauma Team Alerts, Medical Emergency Response Team, etc.) while practicing safety first in all aspects of their duties.  

Team members will obtain all necessary information as defined by protocols for the specific emergency response team.  

Additional protocols for teams may include contacting outside resources (Richmond 911, VCU Police, etc.), utilizing third party platforms (fire alarm monitoring system), overhead announcements, confirmation phone calls to on call providers and any electronic documentation necessary for regulatory tracing.  

Team members will perform these duties with no more than one (1) error per quarter.  

Performance Expectation: Answering Service

Provides after hours answering service support to all of VCU Health’s ambulatory clinic locations.

 Team members will be responsible for determining the needs of the caller and managing the call appropriately while practicing STAR Values with all callers.  

Appropriate actions to be taken by team members will include, but are not limited to, confirming and cancelling appointments in the VCU Health scheduling system (IDX/Epic), paging of the appropriate emergency on call physician for the clinic or service as determined by the web based on call schedule, providing general clinic information (contact information, directions, etc.) and appropriate documentation for all calls received.

In the event a caller is encountering a life threatening emergency, team members will connect callers to their local 911 dispatch center to ensure the dispatch of emergency medical services or other necessary emergency response to the patient’s location.  

All team members are expected to complete these duties with a 95% answering service documentation rate.  

Team members are also expected to maintain an average call rating of 90% or better as determined through monthly call reviews performed by department leadership.  

Performance Expectation: Telepage Services  

Appropriately pages VCU Health physicians, advanced practitioners, technicians and leaders as needed by both internal and external customers while utilizing a safety first approach and practicing STAR Values at all times.

Team members will be proficient in utilizing the VCU Health web based on call schedule to both determine the appropriate team members to page and to make adjustments to the on call schedule as requested by callers.  

Proficiency in the use of Spok Smart Console is required to perform duties to include, but not limited to, paging VCU Health team members, assigning pager coverage and activating or deactivating pagers.

Team members will also be proficient in utilizing the Spok Smart Center Oracle Database to manage team members’ inclusion and removal from emergency notification and mass notification paging groups.  

Team members are expected to maintain an average call rating of 90% or better as determined through monthly call reviews performed by department leadership.  

Performance Expectation: General Information  

Provides general information and assistance to patients, VCU Health team members, non-VCU Health practitioners and the general public.  

Assistance provided will include, but is not limited to, forwarding callers to clinics, departments or nursing units within the VCU Health network, verifying appointments utilizing the VCU Health scheduling platform (IDX/Epic), providing directions or contact information to callers and communicating general information about services provided by VCU Health.  

Team members will update listings for patients in the Spok Smart Console application, as needed, to include legal name for patients registered under computer generated name identifiers (trauma and X patients) and the status of patients identi