-- Family Communicator: Provides timely updates to family members
regarding the status of a patient, freeing healthcare staff from
interruptions during the day. Physicians and nursing staff can record
patient status updates, which can be sent to patient-authorized family and
friends via phone, SMS, email, or Web-enabled service. The solution also
enables patient-authorized individuals to call into and access pre-recorded
updates.
-- Patient Vital Statistics Monitoring: Ideal for aiding in chronic
disease management, healthcare providers can monitor patient therapies and
well-being remotely so the patient does not need an office visit.
Healthcare organizations can use it to call out to patients and let
patients use speech self-service to provide important health information.
The solution monitors and logs patient responses in real-time, recognizing
if key values (i.e., heart rate, blood pressure) are at acceptable ranges.
If not, the system sends patients to a live healthcare agent.
-- Patient Payment Recovery: Enables healthcare providers to use outbound
self-service to contact and remind patients of payments due, and offer
instant automated payment options. This automated solution offers a more
simple, secure, and cost-efficient way to process patient payments,
increase cash flow and reduce bad debt.
Avaya Helps Florida Hospital Reach New Levels of Customer Satisfaction,
Mobility
In addition to Proactive Outreach, Avaya Global Services provides an array
of solutions for healthcare organizations through its industry-leading
consulting and technical expertise. One organization recently helped by
Avaya Global Services was Bert Fish Medical Center of New Smyrna Beach,
Florida, which sought a strategy for improving customer service and
workplace productivity.
To support communications across nine facilities -- including a 112-bed
hospital building, doctor's offices, and social services -- Bert Fish
Medical Center implemented an Avaya Communication Manager Internet protocol
(IP) telephony platform, as well as advanced contact center and messaging
applications.
Bert Fish Medical Center saw instant benefits to its customer service
operation. Facing the challenge of high call volumes, the medical center
used Avaya's contact center reporting applications to monitor peak traffic
times, and determine how to manage staff during those times. This improved
doctors' ability to reach resources around the organization, and eliminated
nearly all customer complaints regarding dropped calls and excess wait
times -- increasing satisfaction among workers and callers alike.
Moreover, new mobility capabilities were introduced by integrating Avaya IP
solutions with mobile handsets by Ascom, an Avaya DevConnect partner. Bert
Fish Medical Center deployed mobile handsets over its IP network to
emergency room, nursing and respiratory groups, helping to speed
communications among staff while eliminating the need for loud overhead
paging. By using discreet mobile device alerts on handhelds, workers could
contribute to a quieter workplace aligned with the organization's
'Planetree' healing environment philosophy.
"The healthcare industry is rapidly changing, but we feel better prepared
than ever with Avaya communications technology and services in place," said
Debbie Burgess, information technology director, Bert Fish Medical Center.
"Avaya helped us advance our ability to serve customers and workers better,
and in a more cost-efficient way that brings new meaning to the phrase
'delivering more with less.' Whether it's helping ensure 24/7
responsiveness, or discovering new ways to share test lab results, we are
confident in Avaya's ability to deliver."
New Avaya Innovation Points to Future of Healthcare Communications
Avaya will showcase other key innovations at HIMSS 2009, including an
intelligent voice agent for healthcare, a technology that provides mobile
healthcare professionals with a fast, hands-free way to access other
healthcare resources and personnel throughout an organization. It uses
several key elements, including context-based technologies -- which
recognize a user's role and function -- and real-time location-based
services that enable workers to reach out to the closest available person.
Avaya's intelligent voice agent demonstration at HIMSS shows how healthcare
staff will be able to simply say the type of specialist or resource they
need using any mobile or desktop device -- and the technology will reach
the most appropriate, closest specialist depending on the need. When the
request is made, the solution recognizes who is making the request, and
evaluates other employees' skill sets, locations and proximity to the
caller before finding the best available specialist to answer the request.
Avaya Speakers at HIMSS 2009
In addition to product demonstrations, Avaya healthcare experts will be
discussing the latest advancements in healthcare technology at the event.
Avaya speaking sessions are:
-- Monday, April 6, 12:15 pm - 1 pm: Brian Leiser, Avaya life sciences
and healthcare professional services managing director, will be discussing
Avaya's proactive outreach services, including a focus on Avaya Patient
Payment Recovery.
-- Monday, April 6, 5:15 pm - 6:00 pm: Mark Wechsler, Avaya healthcare
program office director, and Lynne S. Brotman, Avaya unified communications
senior manager, will discuss intelligent voice agent capabilities for
healthcare.
About Avaya
Avaya is a global leader in enterprise communications systems. The company
provides
unified communications, contact centers, and related
services directly and through its channel
partners to leading businesses and organizations around the
world. Enterprises of all sizes depend on Avaya for state-of-the-art
communications that improve efficiency, collaboration, customer service and
competitiveness. For more information please visit www.avaya.com.
About HIMSS
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) is the
healthcare industry's membership organization exclusively focused on
providing leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information
technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of human health.
The HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition is widely recognized as one of the
world's largest and most respected events dedicated to healthcare IT.
Contact Information: Media Relations: Jonathan Varman 908-953-6432 jvarman@avaya.com