Hospital Moves To VoIP

communications TDM VoIP IP telephony

"The biggest thing for us was to be able to have a mixture of TDM and VoIP phones. We have VoIP at one of our locations--our wellness clinic--and we don't have patients out there," Hopkins says. "VoIP, in our eyes, is still pretty bleeding-edge, and we didn't want to go with it to the nursing units and things until we were very comfortable that it's going to be reliable."

For that reason, Cheryl Krueger, area vice president of business solutions for Windstream, Little Rock, Ark., pitched a solution that included Siemens' HiPath 4000 VoIP system with a HiPath Xpressions voicemail system and the HiPath ProCenter Enterprise multimedia content center platform.

Siemens products were the only ones pitched to BryanLGH that would allow the hospital to integrate VoIP with its TDM system, and Windstream was able to keep its long-term customer happy. The solution provider has worked with BryanLGH for more than 15 years.

"We have been long-time partners with BryanLGH, and we have dedicated technicians there. We have evolved with them as a business," Krueger says. "We meet on a weekly basis looking at their current changes and also looking into the future."

In May of last year, the solution provider signed the RFP for the project and it completed the $2.2 million installation in October 2007. In addition to the Siemens equipment, the hospital purchased about 6,000 phones and had to upgrade every switch at every site. Windstream also diversified the network for easier disaster recovery.

The biggest challenge for Windstream wasn't the year and a half it spent on installation; it was bringing BryanLGH's users up to speed on how the new system worked.

"Some of the areas, depending on their departments, were eased into that change faster than the others. I think it depended on the complexity of the application," Krueger says. "One of the challenges was making sure that we did training, and we tried to do follow-up training and some one-on-ones."

So far, the decision to move to a Siemens VoIP solution has been a good one for BryanLGH, particularly as the ProCenter content-management system has helped it improve communications with patients.

"We really like ProCenter, and that's a product that really allows our patient center people to go in and have screen shots of who's calling. It allows them to have extensive reports for the supervisor to be able to see people's work level," Hopkins says. "We also love having everybody on the same voicemail system. Before we had three or four different systems of voicemail, so the ways you dialed in would be different depending on which hospital you were at, and that would confuse people," she said.

BryanLGH is also pleased with its decision to stick with its long-term solution provider. "They've been very good. They know what our goals are. They know what our expectations are," Hopkins said. "I'm sure that this system will last another dozen years like the last one. It's an extremely reliable product."

Although the project is finally finished, it's not the end of the road for BryanLGH and Windstream. The hospital is planning on adding a six-floor women's health-care center and will continue to push aggressively to keep up with technology.

"The hospital itself is continuous and changing, and as with any software and system, there will be maintenance of that system," Krueger says. "They're a very aggressive hospital in their growth and in their technology, and we'll be there as partners to assist them with that and continue to work and enhance our partnership."