Case Study:

Orlando Regional Healthcare–Orlando, FL

Orlando Regional Healthcare, an 1,800-bed private, not-for-profit organization, serves more than 540,000 Central Florida residents and 4,500 international patients annually. The Corporate Call Center at Orlando Regional Healthcare is staffed by 32 full-time agents and processes more than 6,000 calls per day.

Reliability, Functionality And Room To Grow

The Challenge

An unreliable paging system can wreak havoc in a hospital environment. Just ask Mike Spencer, Telecommunications Manager at Orlando Regional Healthcare. For several years, Spencer's department struggled with a CTI system whose paging server failed repeatedly.

"It was a nightmare," says Spencer. "We had no confidence in the system—and neither did our doctors and staff."

Orlando Regional began looking for a more comprehensive communication center automation system that would provide robust, reliable paging and other desired console features such as personally recorded operator greetings and PC directory backup. It needed a way to link multiple facilities in the Orlando Regional Healthcare network into a single directory, paging and call processing system. It also wanted a vendor that could be relied on as a corporate partner in terms of service, support and future technology enhancements.

The Objective

• Obtain a reliable paging system/server with maximum uptime
• Replace the DOS-based CTI system with an enterprise-level, standards-based system that was capable of processing calls for multiple hospitals
• Reduce internal cost and labor hours devoted to system troubleshooting and maintenance
• Provide operators with added features such as pre-recorded greeting capability
• Provide a web interface for employees to perform paging, on-call scheduling, directory lookups and updates without operator assistance
• Be able to process an increasing number of calls without hiring additional operators

The Solution

Orlando Regional chose Amcom's communication center automation solution. This standards-based system includes 16 Windows based workstations for operators and a UNIX based Compaq server for database, paging and other server applications. Amcom's unique design provides a transparent front end to operators, IVR users and web users to send pages to Orlando's in-house and wide area pagers. The system's Oracle database integrates to other corporate programs for seamless data updates and provides high-reliability, true multitasking capabilities. Workstations include a full suite of operator applications including automated paging, automated on-call scheduling and the Operator Saver™ automated greeting feature. In addition, the system's Smart Web interface enables employees to perform their own paging, directory lookups, and oncall scheduling from their web browsers.

The Results

• Paging performance and uptime have reached 24 x 7 reliability.
• Orlando Regional's Corporate Call Center now answers more than 6,000 calls per day for four hospital locations, with plans to bring three additional facilities on board.
• Pre-recorded answering can be customized for individuals, departments or facility.
• All computer-equipped employees can do their own paging, directory lookups and scheduling using the Smart Web interface.
• 60 percent of Orlando Regional's one million annual pages have been offloaded from operators and are now sent directly by physicians and medical staff via IVR and Smart Web paging.
• Management hours dedicated to system maintenance and troubleshooting have dropped substantially.
• Operators now have access to more comprehensive data and a broader range of time-saving console tools.

Orlando Regional Healthcare Comments

Mike Spencer, Telecommunications Manager, Orlando Regional Healthcare:

"Buying the Amcom system was the best decision we've ever made. Our old system ‘locked up' frequently. We now have an enterprise-wide system that everybody is comfortable with. We can sleep at night again."

"Everybody loves Smart Web. We now have directory lookup and text paging on every desktop in the organization. As we roll out new PCs to nurse's stations, we're loading Smart Web shortcut as an icon at startup. It couldn't be easier to access and use."

"The Amcom system is feature-rich. It comes with a hierarchal Oracle database, which means we can do much more with it in terms of lookups within departments, paging, messaging, scheduling and statistical tracking. Our old system was just a flat, alphabetized database."

"Amcom provides an incredible level of service. From our network team to operations to finance, everybody's raving about Amcom. Our installation timeline was merciless… but Amcom nailed it. When we have a new idea or need to get something done on the fly, we call Amcom. Lots of companies talk about being a Corporate. Amcom walks the walk."