WAUWATOSA, WI - Asked what inspired her cardiovascular services team to enact two very different programs aimed at the same basic goals of reliability, confidence and satisfaction, General Manager Amy Lazarus replies simply, "Our customers did!"

GE's new dedicated cardiology call center offers hospitals a single, U.S. based point of contact with faster service from staff specifically trained in cardiovascular products. Additionally, Innova Promise continues to be enhanced and deliver peace-of-mind by identifying potential issues in the Cath lab remotely, often before they're even noticed by the hospital personnel.

The cardiology call center has been handling support calls for GE's Cardiac x-ray (Advantx®/Innova®), Invasive Monitoring (Mac-Lab® IT, CardioLab® IT , ComboLab IT), Centricity CVIS & cardiovascular PACS since October 2006, during operating hours. The team currently responds to calls Monday through Friday, 5:00am to 9:00pm Central Time, but GE plans to expand those hours as it expands the team. Each new operator will be trained with the same vigilance the existing team, including vigorous feedback, personal interviews with engineers on the GE service and technical support team to reduce wait times. According to Call Center Team Lead Djily Drame, the average wait time to reach a trained operator is 4-6 seconds. "Being quick to answer calls is one key to our success," Drame explained, "but product knowledge and accuracy are equally important. Before we started the dedicated service, our customers would sometimes bounce around from operator to operator, just trying to reach someone who knew about the equipment they had. Now, that person is the one that picks up the call, every time. Our customers asked us to change and we did."
Innova Promise is GE's commitment to remotely monitor the system through an InSite Broadband connection to detect exam interruptions and potential failures. Most importantly, it comes standard with every Innova X-ray system under warranty or service contract. To date, GE has more than 2,000 systems being actively monitored.

"If everything is working right, ours is still a high-risk service," said Syd Rubencamp, Cardiology Director of St. Rose Dominican Hospitals in Las Vegas. "When a patient comes in with a full-blown heart attack, equipment failure is simply unacceptable."

With Innova Promise, GE can detect primary items such as low fluid levels and temperature and humidity spikes. They can also detect more complex issues around the mechanical and electrical functionality of the system, and have even included an integrated UPS with the system to provide protection from power surges. GE's entire cardiovascular service team is equipped to receive automated alerts when there is an indication of a problem.

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