May 13th, 2009 - Ten Years of Telephone Triage in Ontario

Sykes Assistance Services Announces Ten Years of Telephone Triage in Ontario

Sykes Assistance Services is pleased to announce that today marks the 10 year anniversary of its Telephone Triage programs in Ontario.  On May 13th, 1999, a small call center in North Bay opened up its doors to a pilot program called Direct Health.  This program, a 22 month pilot project, was funded by the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund and would eventually become TeleHealth Ontario.   

On its first day, Sykes employed 12 Registered Nurses and 7 Patient Assistance Representatives.  Five of the original 12 Nurses remain with the company today.  Diane Legault, site manager in North Bay believes “these individuals are the true pioneers of telephone triage here in Ontario”.  The Direct Health program originally serviced all northern Ontario residents whose phone numbers used the 807 area code and those residents north of Huntsville who used the 705 area code.   

Since taking the first call a decade ago, Sykes provision of Telephone Triage has grown to include five locations, over 300 Registered Nurses and intake of over 100,000 calls per month.   

Sykes Assistance Services is Canada’s leading provider of contact centre based telehealth services, covering over 18 million lives with over 400 professional nurses and case managers available 24/7 to meet the needs of our clients.  Sykes provides symptom assessment, health information, addictions counseling, remote monitoring, chronic illness support, and a variety of public health information lines on behalf of our government and industry partners.   

Operating eleven call centers across Canada, Sykes Assistance Services offers a broad range of assistance based services including Healthcare, Emergency Roadside Assistance, Legal Assistance, Home Assistance and Customer Service Assistance.  For additional information please visit www.sykesassistance.com.