Retiring 600 Pagers and Cutting Call Volume by 56K Annually

Location
Traverse City, MI

Solutions
Operator Console
Clinical Collaboration
Lightning Bolt Scheduling

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary

Munson Healthcare’s 7-hospital system in northern Michigan was ready to retire its aging call center infrastructure, which relied heavily on pagers and an unreliable mobile messaging app.
The on-prem system was difficult to maintain, tethered the organization to nearly 1,500 physical pagers, and created heavy call volumes for operators.
Clinicians lacked a dependable way to connect directly with colleagues, and schedules were difficult to keep current.
As part of a larger modernization effort, Munson replaced the legacy platform with PerfectServe, including its Operator Console, Clinical Collaboration, and Lightning Bolt Scheduling solutions.
Over the next 13 months, Munson saw call volume to the call center decrease by 56,000. The health system also retired 600 hard pagers (40% of the total) and transitioned more than 2,000 clinicians to PerfectServe’s secure mobile and web messaging platform.

Improved Efficiency with Lower Costs

50%savings

The changes improved reliability, visibility, and communication efficiency for operators, clinicians, and patients alike, and Munson’s monthly costs related to pagers dropped by 50%.

Munson’s call center was built on a legacy vendor’s on-prem technology that was no longer a good match for the speed and complexity of modern care delivery:

Clinicians relied on pagers and the vendor’s mobile app for communication—tools that worked in theory, but not always in practice.

Although the mobile app technically supported secure paging, its reliability issues led to frequent missed messages and delayed responses, creating risk and frustration for clinicians.

Operators, meanwhile, had little visibility into whether messages were received or acted upon.

Between the limited visibility, dependence on pagers, and clunky workflows forced by an outdated platform, Munson’s leadership team knew they needed a more modern system that could give operators flexibility and insight while helping clinicians communicate more effectively.

How PerfectServe Streamlined Call Routing and Messaging

After an extensive evaluation process, Munson partnered with PerfectServe to address not just communication weaknesses, but scheduling shortcomings as well. Though the call center was a focal point, the vision PerfectServe outlined—with multichannel communication and integrated provider scheduling across their entire health system—yielded a broader project scope with greater potential for impact.

PerfectServe replaced Munson’s on-prem communication system with a multi-solution, cloud-based platform designed for reliability and flexibility. The implementation included:

Operator Console
A modern switchboard that gives operators instant access to clinicians, customizable scripts, and quickaction buttons for tasks like clinical codes. One particular area of improvement has been the upload process from Active Directory, which helps ensure clinician data stays current across the system.

Clinical Collaboration
Secure mobile and web messaging that lets clinicians reach colleagues directly without routing through the switchboard.

Lightning Bolt Scheduling
Integrated provider schedules that ensure all users—from operators to clinicians—can easily tell who’s covering each role.

Emergency Alerting
Mass notification capability that allows Munson to page up to 10,000 users at once for weather emergencies and other critical events—and in the same platform where all other critical communications happen.

56,000 Fewer Calls—and a More Connected Care Team

The impact of Munson Healthcare’s move to PerfectServe was far-reaching. By consolidating communication and scheduling into one platform, Munson achieved results that touched almost every corner of the organization

Fewer Calls and Smarter Connections

The shift to PerfectServe has transformed how calls flow through Munson’s switchboard. Instead of relying on operators for every connection, clinicians can now reach one another directly and securely.

Uptick in secure messaging adoption: In January 2024, 1,895 clinicians used the previous vendor’s mobile application. By September 2025, 2,097 were using PerfectServe’s mobile and web app. Clinicians sent 64,622 secure messages in PerfectServe in July 2025, a 32% increase from the 49,035 sent the prior August. These are clear signs of growth and confidence in the new platform.
Internal calls down 34%: Calls to the switchboard from the internal queue dropped from 12,230 in August 2024 to 8,090 in July 2025.
Operator-initiated pages down almost 30%: Paging activity from the switchboard fell from 3,627 in August 2024 to 2,568 in July 2025, allowing operators to focus more on urgent or complex cases.
Code phones remain for critical alerts: While emergency code phone calls—used for scenarios like STEMI or code blue—still represent a small but important share of traffic, operators can now use quick-action buttons in Operator Console to quickly send predefined alerts to the correct response teams.

These trends—combined with the introduction of an IVR phone tree that now handles a large share of routine calls— resulted in a reduction of 56,000 total calls to the call center over 13 months. Fewer routine calls mean operators can focus on high-stakes situations while clinicians enjoy faster, more reliable communication through secure messaging.

32%

increase in messages sent after implementing PerfectServe.

34%

drop in internal calls to the switchboard.

30%

drop in operator-initiated pages.

Fewer Pagers, 50% Reduction in Monthly Costs, and More Reliable Communication

Since implementing PerfectServe, Munson has retired about 40% of its hard pagers (600 out of 1,497). The resulting benefits have been twofold:

First, these pagers come with monthly service and maintenance costs, which end up accounting for most of the lifetime revenue derived by vendors who use them. In this instance, Munson’s average monthly spend for pager fees was about $20,000. After the PerfectServe deployment, that number has been reduced to $10,000 — a significant 50% drop.

Second, the transition to PerfectServe-enabled secure mobile and web messaging gives clinicians a more modern and reliable way to connect that pagers can’t replicate. Enabling realtime communication has improved both clinician response times and the speed of care coordination.

Operators Are Working Smarter, Not Harder

With fewer calls and advanced scripting at their fingertips, operators can handle complex scenarios with speed and confidence. Quickaction buttons, searchable directories, and pre-built clinical code scripts mean that even new staff who don’t have every department memorized can efficiently manage high-stakes alerts like STEMI or code blue.

PerfectServe gives operators visibility into message delivery and read receipts, and the platform also indicates when a message has been auto-escalated to another recipient if it hasn’t been actioned within a certain time frame. This prevents operators from having to spend additional time following up or repeating actions, and it gives them peace of mind that important communications are reaching someone who can respond appropriately.

System-Wide Scheduling Drives Clinical Efficiency

Because Lightning Bolt schedules are fully integrated with Operator Console and Clinical Collaboration, operators always know who’s on call and how to reach them. This real-time connection between scheduling and communication reduces errors, prevents delays, and removes potentially dangerous roadblocks from daily care coordination.

These combined gains translate into a more efficient call center, lower costs, and a better communication experience for every member of the care team. It’s a good indication that retiring outdated technology can quickly unlock measurable, system-wide value.

A Vendor That Feels Like a Proactive Partner

Munson was also thoroughly impressed with PerfectServe’s proactive and customer-centric approach. These projects impact and require input from a lot of people, and the details tend to evolve quite a bit from start to finish, so success almost always hinges on close cooperation between the healthcare organization and the vendor.

That’s exactly what Munson has experienced with PerfectServe, noting in particular that the PerfectServe project team:

Takes time to listen and understand their needs
Translates those needs into creative solutions
Hosts productive project check-ins on a regular basis
Asks for feedback and follows through with actionable changes to improve workflows
Presents proactive solutions and enhancements that they may not even be asking for

This kind of close partnership can be the difference between a big deployment whose impact diminishes over time and a game-changing upgrade that permanently alters the way care is coordinated.

Replacing a Legacy Vendor to Build a More Connected Care Team

Munson Healthcare’s journey underscores a simple truth: Retiring outdated technology is a worthy goal if it’s no longer meeting your needs, but it’s also only half the battle. Long-term success with this kind of project required a partner who:

Had the right scheduling technology with Lightning Bolt
Gave them a chance to consolidate important scheduling and communication workflows with one vendor
Had the right mix of clinical experience and proactive customer support to help them execute a transformative upgrade with tangible results

With PerfectServe, Munson replaced a legacy vendor while building a foundation for faster communication, lower costs, and a more connected care team.

Exploring New Ways to Scale with PerfectServe

With the core switchboard already seeing strong results, Munson is exploring other ways to leverage the PerfectServe platform, including expanded scripting features that could further streamline critical communication.

Whatever the future holds, working with PerfectServe’s more scalable technology has given Munson the flexibility to add functionality on its own terms and as needs arise.

Download PDF

Ready to see us in action?