HealthStream Inc. announced it will move its Patient Experience phone research operations from its Maryland Patient Interview Center to Tennessee.

The Patient Interview Center in Baltimore will close in a tiered process over the next few months, company officials added. Additionally, around 40 employees in the Maryland office working in Patient Experience Professional Services Group in Laurel, MD, will relocate to a new office in Columbia, MD, in July.  The company’s main phone number will remain the same, as well as all email addresses.

“The trend for how today’s patients want to provide feedback is through email and text messaging and our online surveys are particularly well suited for that. The transition to these surveys, along with the consolidation to a single interview center, helps the company reduce inefficiencies inherent in maintaining multiple call centers,” said Robert A. Frist Jr., HealthStream’s CEO.

HealthStream has 45 current job offerings and offered to let Patient Experience Interviewers with three years of tenure or more to move to Nashville, according to General Manager Gregg Loughman.