You don’t just blend in when you’re a Voalte Mobile Application Administrator (VMAA). Our pink pants make us very visible in the hospital hallways, which is exactly the point.
VMAAs deliver an added service to health systems that recognize the value of having a full-time, onsite subject matter expert in all things Voalte. These dedicated men and women develop strong relationships with end users to increase adoption and efficient use of our smartphone solutions, troubleshoot support and technical issues, and provide training and provisioning services. On a day-to-day basis, they do everything from ensuring charging stations are plugged in to managing device inventory to maintaining the Voalte Directory. When the nurses on the floor become accustomed to seeing the same face (and signature pink pants) every day, it’s easy for them to ask the VMAA questions about sending group text messages, adding Favorites, customizing a specific workflow or whatever issues they may need resolved.
In addition to being a tremendously valuable resource for the nurses, physicians, support staff and others who rely on Voalte smartphones for clinical communication, our VMAAs also support the hospital’s telecommunications, networking and IT teams. If the hospital is struggling with Wi-Fi coverage in a particular hallway, for example, the VMAA can investigate and give examples of when and where the issue occurs, with logs and preliminary reports to help troubleshoot the problem before it escalates to a network engineer.
For large health systems like the University of Iowa Health Care, with more than 3,500 smartphones and 7,000 end users, tasks such as app updates require careful planning and coordination with multiple departments. The VMAA is onsite every day, is familiar with the particular needs of the different units, and can help create a plan that ensures a smooth transition to new versions of an app or operating system.
Another multi-site health system had a smaller but no less important request recently, when the hospital chaplain approached a VMAA to say he noticed all the nurses carrying smartphones and wanted to know how they work. After a quick demonstration, the chaplain requested that his team of two be included in the texting and calling loop. Now, when a patient or their family requests a chaplain, the bedside nurse can simply send a quick text message.
More and more, our new customers are requesting a full-time, dedicated VMAA to work closely with their in-house IT team. They like having someone onsite who has all the latest product knowledge, and knows what features and upgrades are coming soon. It works the other way around too: VMAAs provide Voalte headquarters with valuable feedback about each customer’s challenges and successes, so we can learn from that experience and make positive changes for the future.
If you’re interested in learning more about how a VMAA can help at your hospital, feel free to reach out to me.
Ashley McArthur is VMAA Manager at Voalte.
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