Case Study: UI Health

For over a decade, Lighthouse Enterprises has maintained a collaborative, mission-driven partnership with a large public health organization in Illinois, UI Health. What began as a small pilot project has grown into a fully integrated contact center operation. Today, our work helps UI Health streamline patient access, reduce administrative burdens, and deliver care more efficiently.

Details

Industry: Healthcare | Service: Contact Center | # of Staffed Agents: 130

Taking on Admin & Communication
to Improve Patient Care

UI Health is a large public hospital based in Illinois, with over 85 clinics spanning a wide range of specialties. From the beginning, UI Health was drawn to our mission to create meaningful employment opportunities for people who are blind and visually impaired. That shared commitment to equity and service laid the foundation for innovative, values-driven call center services.

Challenges

Admin-Related Tasks Overshadowed Patient Care

As UI Health’s footprint and patient population grew, so did the complexity of patient communication and administrative coordination. UI Health needed a trusted partner to streamline non-clinical tasks so its teams could focus on delivering high-quality care. This would require a reliable, scalable solution for handling patient communication across multiple clinics and specialties.

Solutions

EMR System Integration & Effective Internal Communication

Our team responded by incrementally growing its support structure alongside UI Health’s needs. Working closely with its leadership and Information Technology team, we integrated UI Health’s EMR system, Epic. This let us message clinics on the patients’ behalf while also developing efficient backdoor communication lines for faster problem-solving.

Our collaborative approach enabled us to:

Support helpdesk solutions for patient enrollment, proxy access, password resets, and medical history retrieval
Complete outpatient scheduling/rescheduling for office visits and procedures
Conduct insurance verifications through electronic provider portals
Provide after hours messaging and paging services

To address the many different types of calls, we built customized call routing structures, including 85 different queues – over 40 of which are medication-specific – to connect patients with the proper clinic teams. Whether for a first-time appointment, a specialty referral, a telehealth registration, or an urgent triage need, our agents quickly guide patients with clarity and care. They also handle “escalated” concerns to reduce the burden on clinic staff.

Our Fast COVID-Era Pivot

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, UI Health faced urgent challenges in communication and care coordination. We responded by launching a 24/7 call center within days, handling calls from patients and employees, tracking staff illness, and helping the hospital navigate the crisis without compromising care.

Results

Major Growth Through Outsourced Admin & Registration

What started as four agents supporting two clinics has evolved into 130 agents and 85 clinics, in both English and Spanish. Over 36% of Lighthouse Enterprises’ agents are blind, visually impaired, disabled, and veterans.

Playing a critical role in patient scheduling, registration, insurance verification, referrals, and clinical communication across the UI Health system, our partnership has allowed UI Health to:

Improve Operational Efficiency: Clinics save time and resources by outsourcing scheduling, registration, and call center services to us so they can focus on providing patient care.
Open More Clinics: As UI Health opens new locations, we scale with them, supporting additional specialties and new patient populations.
Enhance EMR Access: UI Health innovatively adapts its electronic medical record system to support call center agents who are blind or visually impaired.
Improve Patient Services: Call abandonment rates are below 5% thanks to the responsiveness and effectiveness of our team.

Overall, UI Health has saved money and time on resources by outsourcing labor and call center staffing to Lighthouse Enterprises.

Looking Ahead

Our solutions let UI Health focus more on patient care. Together, UI Health and Lighthouse Enterprises are proving that operational excellence and inclusive employment can go hand in hand.

A Shared Mission for Inclusion

UI Health shares our mission of inclusivity. Their values include respect, compassion, and accountability – just like ours. Although not a requirement, UI Health took an innovative approach to accommodate workers with disabilities. They created an adaptive enhancement of their EMR system for blind and visually impaired agents, then formed a team to support those agents. Our joint efforts show how being mission-focused can result in scalable solutions and improved patient access, while delivering strong operational performance.