Yale New Haven Health celebrates one million calls made to COVID 19 Call Center

New Haven, CT (March 16, 2022) – Yale New Haven Health (YNHHS) has reached a milestone in patient care and service by recording the one millionth call to the YNHHS COVID-19 Call Center. The milestone call came today, Wednesday, March 16.

YNHHS launched the state’s first COVID-19 call center on March 9, 2020 and within the first six hours, logged 300 calls and more than 2,676 calls in the first week. Since opening, the call center has assisted with scheduling 712,723 COVID tests and 169,615 COVID vaccinations for patients and community members.

“When we initiated the Call Center at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we never envisioned it would be as large and as enduring as it has become,” said Maribeth Cabie, executive director, clinical operations, YNHHS. “Over time, it became clear that the people we touch needed a reliable source of information and access to real people who had both compassion and expertise, for their care needs.”

The COVID call center has taken on a new name “Clinical Operations Call Center” and is part of a much larger initiative at Yale New Haven Health called the Patient Access Center. While a main focus of the call center is still all things COVID, it has started to branch out to other clinical opportunities such as reaching out to ensure patients have a smooth transition home from the hospital by performing post-discharge phone calls. The nursing staff are able to triage patients to the appropriate level of care between the emergency departments, urgent cares, Video Care Ondemand telehealth services or to primary care providers.

“The team was proud to serve our patients and the community during the pandemic and we are excited to continue this service as we venture into other opportunities with an expanded clinical scope and triaging capabilities,” said Cabie.

Yale New Haven Health (YNHHS), the largest and most comprehensive healthcare system in Connecticut, is recognized for advanced clinical care, quality, service, cost effectiveness and commitment to improving the health status of the communities it serves. YNHHS includes five hospitals – Bridgeport, Greenwich, Lawrence + Memorial, Westerly and Yale New Haven hospitals, several specialty networks and Northeast Medical Group, a non-profit medical foundation with several hundred community-based and hospital-employed physicians. YNHHS is affiliated with Yale University and Yale Medicine, the clinical practice of the Yale School of Medicine and the largest academic multi-specialty practice in New England. Yale New Haven Hospital is the primary teaching hospital of Yale School of Medicine. www.ynhhs.org