Seamless care for happy patients

Narayana Health Group is one of India’s leading healthcare providers. It operates a network of 18 hospitals and three heart centres across India, along with an overseas presence in the Cayman Islands. On top of delivering high-quality, affordable healthcare services, Narayana Health aspires to transition from conventional healthcare practices to a more comprehensive patient-centric approach.

Today, Narayana Health serves over 4.2 million patients annually. While commendable, this influx proved challenging because the healthcare provider had to manage a network of diverse partners operating on various systems. This made the journey to support the ever-evolving capacity and scalability needs more challenging.

To overcome this challenge, Narayana Health partnered with Tata Communications and embarked on a transformative journey to consolidate its contact centre systems, reduce technical debt and lower costs with the unified modern cloud architecture and open platform capabilities of Genesys Cloud.

“In our pursuit of bringing healthcare to the masses, we recognise that technology is the key to bridging gaps and optimising capital investment,” said Kumar KV, Group Chief Information Officer of Narayana Health. “With partners like Genesys and Salesforce integrated into our ecosystem, we are here to create change and deliver high-quality care at affordable prices.”

Leveraging the cloud for agility and flexibility

One of the healthcare provider’s biggest challenges with its previous on-premises solution was the lack of visibility into partner system activity and issues, which led to tedious communication for troubleshooting during downtimes.

“We made the strategic decision to partner with Genesys over other vendors,” said Kumar. “This choice was driven by its industry-leading reputation, comprehensive feature set and proven track record. Genesys Cloud stood out for its ability to meet our specific requirements and deliver a unified solution.”

Being easy to manage with minimal IT resources, the cloud platform enabled Narayana Health to swiftly implement system changes. This included managing fluctuating call volumes in healthcare, which is a delicate balance.

“While it’s convenient to guide patients through automated options, during peak times patients don’t want to wait,” said Kumar. “Deactivating the IVR during high call volumes offers every patient the opportunity to connect with an agent promptly.”

In prioritising flexibility, Narayana Health places patients first, connecting them with care whenever needed. This makes healthcare more accessible and improves lives.

Enhancing data visibility and driving performance improvements

Previously, data navigation across disparate systems proved challenging and time-consuming. These intricacies further arose in collating information from various vendors, each presenting data in different formats, which resulted in inconsistencies.

Implementing the Genesys Cloud platform has played a pivotal role in breaking down work silos — enabling greater alignment between the requirements of the contact centre and staff scheduling.

“Genesys has provided us with a unified platform that offers transparent insights into critical data points,” said Prabakharan Krishnan, Head of Contact Centre of Narayana Health. “This transformation has significantly improved our understanding of agent performance, enabling us to identify and address areas for enhancement.

“For example, with Genesys we can easily identify call trends by region, allowing us to allocate resources more efficiently. If certain zones consistently experience longer call durations, we analyse the data to uncover the reasons and implement targeted strategies to improve performance in those areas.”

The move to Genesys Cloud has showed promising results so far. While continuing to fine-tune the platform, the Narayana Health team has seen average handle times decrease by approximately 15%.

Enabling a seamless and sustainable patient experience

Delivering a seamless patient experience is a central priority for Narayana Health.

“Patient experience is our paramount focus, from pre-visit interactions to post-visit follow-ups,” said Kumar. “We seamlessly bridge the virtual and physical realms, ensuring smooth navigation at every stage. This is made possible through the Genesys Cloud single no-code orchestration toolset, API-first open platform and prebuilt connectors that integrate with our CRM system seamlessly.”

Now, agents can effortlessly access contextual information through a single log-in solution. This eliminates the cumbersome task of navigating multiple systems, empowering agents to respond promptly to queries and deliver personalised services.

“Every patient tells a unique story, and understanding their needs before they even walk through our doors is the cornerstone of exceptional care,” said Ashish Bajaj, Chief Marketing Officer of Narayana Health. “With a unified experience orchestration platform, we’re finally seeing the whole picture — allowing us to anticipate needs, personalise treatment and provide the holistic support our patients deserve.”

Beyond enhancing workflow and patient care, the cloud-based technology also helps Narayana achieve its sustainability goals of minimising energy consumption and paper waste. Future possibilities for expanded growth include chatbots that aim to connect patients to care coordinators who assist with complex queries and specialised services. From consolidating all interactions into a single view to orchestrating seamless end-to-end patient journeys, the success of Genesys Cloud empowers Narayana Health to deliver more memorable experiences in the long run.