Health care & telecommunications: prescription for system selection.

There are few business arenas as complex and challenging as health care. Telecommunications resources can provide the foundation for productivity, optimal patient and client care and ultimately, long term organizational success. Effective communications systems provide solutions that help hospital administrators contend with constant demands to reduce costs and improve patient care. The functionality of most importance in health care settings usually includes system reliability and security, followed by overall flexibility, adaptability and ease-of-use to accommodate the diverse communications needs of patients and staff. In general, today's health care facilities, regardless of size, seek superior technology allowing them to adapt quickly to changing communications needs.

SYSTEM RELIABILITY AND EASE-OF-USE

Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital is one of the key health centers in the north coast region of California. With 255 beds, a full-time staff of more than 1,100 people and more than 400 physicians with hospital privileges, it has built its reputation in such areas as cardiac and orthopedic care, as well as in oncology and neurology. The hospital also has a very busy emergency room.

For Santa Rosa Memorial, reliability was the single most important factor in selecting a new communications system, followed by ease of use.

The hospital chose a fiber distributed PBX system with 850 lines. With reliability of paramount importance, a parallel cutover was arranged, where their old PBX system and the new telephone system were working simultaneously to ensure continuity of service.

While system reliability is provided through phone switch design and architecture, ease-of-use is really a function of the "human machine interface" and display capabilities of the telephones attached to the system. To this end, Santa Rosa Memorial included 374 display telephones In the new installation. Single button access is available for the most frequently used features, saving time and reducing errors. Also, included in the system's configuration are 85 additional ports for facsimile, modem and OPX (off premise extension) lines. The true benefits of an improved telecommunications system are demonstrated in many day-to-day situations. Prior to the installation of the new system and telephone sets, a nurse would have to stay on the line to tell the operator where to send a response team if there was an emergency.

With fully-featured telephone sets, the nurse just has to press a button and the operator will know exactly where the distress call is coming from, shaving crucial seconds off response time.

Staff productivity and internal communications are also improved by the combination of modern switching technology and easy-to-use telephone sets. With display functions and programmable buttons, staff training on telephones is minimized -- particularly important in a busy hospital setting. VOICE MAIL ENDS CRITICAL CONDITION

St. Francis Medical Center, in Breckenridge, Minnesota, consists of a 95-bed acute care hospital, an attached 124-bed nursing home, a clinic and a chemical dependency unit. Four separate systems were providing telephone service for the facilities, and that was causing a major headache. The organization was having problems interfacing between the systems, and staff were not able to consistently use all the features on their telephone sets when dealing with different sites. Final system selection was also influenced by budgetary guidelines.

A telephone system was eventually selected, based on overall value as defined by price as well as the features required to successfully integrate clinic settings with nursing facilities and hospital operations. Today, St. Francis' telephone system incorporates the nursing home, clinic and hospital under one system. One of the more intriguing applications for a health care setting is voice mail. Voice processing has helped St. Francis cut down on in-house paging. Before, there was a great deal of paging for administrative and supervisory personnel. Calls were often returned to the attendant several times, resulting in frustrations for the caller and extra work for the attendant.

Now, unanswered calls are routed to the individual's voice mail box, resulting in the switchboard being freed up to handle incoming calls and other priority tasks. The system also reduces telephone tag, again adding to overall productivity.

Maintenance staff are using the voice mail "out call" feature that places a call to an outside number if a voice message is waiting. This feature eliminates the need to frequently check mailbox status, again improving productivity. FIRST AID FOR TELECOMS BUDGET

Coordinating the diverse resources that impact patient care is a round-the-clock challenge for hospital administrators at Beloit Memorial Hospital, a small community hospital serving Beloit, Wisconsin. "Our internal telephone system is like the hub of a wheel, it allows us to coordinate the medical services of experienced staff with the needs of the patient be it emergency or elective," explained Judy Felder, manager of data processing at Beloit. In evaluating telephone systems, Beloit was seeking advanced features and complete redundancy as well as effective service and support to ensure seamless operations in the event of maintenance or service requirements.

The new telephone system has provided direct cost savings for the hospital through the advanced system administration features. The hospital is able to do their own adds, moves and changes and other routine programming. Technicians need to be called only on rare occasions.

Another benefit is the system's ability to easily generate detailed reports. Considerable time and expense is saved by reducing the effort of gathering information for special performance or system audits.

TECHNOLOGY INJECTS NEW LIFE INTO LONG RANGE PLANS

Saint Cloud hospital is a 360-bed regional medical center located in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. The hospital complex consists of the main building and satellite facilities for a home care program, radiology school and a clinic. Saint Cloud needed to factor telecommunications into future growth and strategic planning requirements. In addition to providing room for expansion, the system needed to deliver the technology required to introduce the services that hospital staff were requesting.

With the aid of an outside consultant, the hospital identified several key factors to help evaluate potential systems: redundancy, flexibility, ease-of-use, growth capability, and price. Some of the key features of the new installation included a 1500-station PBX with T1 for long distance service, five-hour battery backup, digital recorded announcement devices, integrated voice mail, call detail recording, as well as a complete state-of-the-art cable system.

The ability of a phone system to grow with the organization was an important factor to consider since St. Cloud Hospital was building a new facility at the time of selection. As a result, the hospital planned installation of an additional 500-station system, forming a private network with the initial base site, providing calling transparency to users within the entire complex.

In addition, the new system would provide improved disaster coverage, another critical benefit to the hospital's operation.

Ease-of-use encourages users to take advantage of advanced capabilities leading to increased productivity. The centralized internal directory has been credited with simplifying the highly repetitive and time consuming task of searching for staff and department numbers.

INVESTING IN HEALTH CARE TELECOMMUNICATIONS

The selection and purchase of a telecommunications system for health care companies is a strategic investment, not just a capital purchase. Today's sophisticated telephone systems offer a multitude of features and applications. To gain maximum return on your telecoms investment, plan the system acquisition or upgrade carefully. Identify critical communications situations and mandatory features (current and future) that your organization and staff require and will put to use. Deal with a reputable manufacturer and vendor. Consider using the services of a consultant, who specializes in health care and telecoms. Get all your questions answered before you decide. See the system you are evaluating in action -- not just in theory.

And finally, ensure that after purchase, support will be available for the long term. After all, the system must be able to grow organically, as your needs evolve. Following these steps will help to ensure that your organization and your clients benefit from this investment for years to come.

Ann Hatchell is director of marketing in North America for Mitel Corporation, an international manufacturer of business telecommunications systems, public switching systems, semiconductor and PC communications products, network enhancement and gateway products, and systems development software components.