Leading Government Medical Center Cures Communication Woes

Executive Summary

Dayton VA Medical CenterHealthcare Industry•

Headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, with four additional facilities in Ohio and Indiana•

Approximately 2000 employees facilitating nearly 400,000 patient visits annually•

Business ChallengeOut-of-date LAN infrastructure incapable of supporting next-generation applications •

Insufficient call center system that did not meet patient needs and could not scale to meet goals •

Antiquated phone and voicemail systems•

Network SolutionAdvanced IP-based network to support bandwidth-intensive applications•

IP-based phone and voicemail solutions integrating voice and data on same network•

Intelligent contact center solution to handle patient and VA system needs•

Business ResultsCost savings from eliminated vendor, telecom carrier, and toll charges•

Improved communication and collaboration throughout Dayton VAMC facilities•

Increased patient care and satisfaction, and decreased wait times•

Cisco Unified Communications solutions deliver improved collaboration, efficiency, and patient care.

ChallengeFormed in 1865 by President Abraham Lincoln, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs has provided comprehensive, high-quality healthcare to approximately 26.5 million veterans. As part of this proud organization, Dayton Medical Facility (Dayton VAMC) in Dayton, Ohio, serves thousands of veterans annually. Beyond its 500-bed medical center, Dayton VAMC is a part of the Healthcare System of Ohio (VISN10), with four additional community outpatient clinics throughout the state and in Richmond, Indiana.

When the leading medical institution that prides itself on providing full-spectrum, innovative healthcare to veterans realized that its aging network infrastructure, phone system, and contact center threatened to impede its patient care, it was time for a change.

“Our LAN (local area network) infrastructure was out of date and incapable of supporting next-generation applications such as bandwidth-intensive medical imaging,” says William Frieler, supervisory IT specialist, Dayton VA Medical Center. “Additionally, our current PBX (private branch exchange) and voicemail systems were at end-of-life, making them unreliable and costly to maintain.

“On top of that, our call center solution did not scale and didn’t offer the flexibility that we required to meet our growing needs and goals. We already managed a nurse triage call center, handling patient requests of all types, but we saw the revenue opportunity to support callers from other facilities within Ohio and beyond, and needed a solution that could enable that.”

“When we looked at our network, PBX, and call center needs, we realized that it was the ideal time to move to a converged IP environment.”

SolutionFrieler and his team selected Cisco to implement its Unified Communications system throughout its facilities. Beginning in Dayton VAMC’s Richmond facility, Cisco replaced the medical facility’s PBX system with Cisco® Unified Communications Manager. The powerful call-processing component of the Cisco Unified Communications system is a scalable, distributable, and highly available enterprise-class IP telephony call-processing system that provides voice, video, mobility, and presence services to workers throughout the organization.

Adding to that, Cisco implemented Cisco Unity®, an enterprise-ready voice and unified messaging platform that enables employees to securely access email, voice, and fax messages from a single inbox anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

For Dayton VA’s contact center needs, Cisco installed its Unified Contact Center Enterprise solution, a strategic platform that uses an IP infrastructure that intelligently segments customers, monitors resource availability, and delivers each contact to the most appropriate resource anywhere in the enterprise. Wherever an agent is based, the system delivers a rich set of call-event and customer-provided data to the desktop as a contact arrives, personalizing service and increasing efficiency.

Finally, Cisco brought the entire solution to users’ desktops with Cisco Unified 7900 Series IP Phones. These advanced tools provide all traditional voice functionalities, plus empower workers to access a suite of integrated voice and data solutions that increase productivity, communication, and collaboration.

“We were confident that our new Cisco solution would give us the features, functionality, and scalability that we needed to not only maintain our reputation as a leading VA medical facility, but also help drive our future,” says Frieler. “We addressed all our needs in one, smooth implementation, and are now ready to realize our full potential to help our patients and extend our services to the entire VA system, thus creating a potentially sizable revenue opportunity.”

“It used to take half a day to install a phone. It now takes five minutes.”

William Frieler

Supervisory IT Specialist, Dayton VA Medical Center

Case Study

ResultsDayton VAMC workers use Cisco Unified Communications systems to communicate and collaborate more effectively, accessing the people and resources that they need the first time. Unified messaging means workers can access voicemail via phone or email inbox, speeding response time. And the robust IP backbone facilitates expedient sharing of bandwidth-heavy data such as electronic medical records, which help enable doctors to provide patients more timely, accurate, and progressive medical care.

With its new call center, Dayton VAMC now evenly distributes calls to the best-suited agents.

“With our prior call center system, patients often had to hold for long periods and found it difficult to reach personnel,” says Frieler. “Now we’re now able to handle those requests in our primary care clinic, pharmacy, and remote outpatient clinics more efficiently and intelligently, thereby decreasing patient wait times and improving patient satisfaction.”

Dayton VAMC call center management also has more visibility into agent and call center performance through advanced reporting, which has enabled the medical center to scale its call center as needed.

“Our Cisco solution enables us to outsource our contact center Telenurse program to VA systems throughout the country,” says Frieler. “This meant scaling from about 60,000 calls per year and five agents to upwards of 750,000 calls annually with about 18 agents. Our Cisco system has accommodated our growing needs without a hitch, empowering us to capitalize on a valuable revenue-generating opportunity.

“Based on the success of our Telenurse program, the VA’s Seamless Transition Office requested that we create a national poly-trauma call center as a single point of contact for returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. With the flexibility and scalability of our Telenurse call center, we cost-effectively expanded in real time by adding skill groups and priority call routing within our existing system positions to fulfill the Office’s request in less than a week.”

From a cost perspective, Frieler says the Cisco solution has and continues to save Dayton VAMC money.

“We implemented our Cisco Unified Communications and contact center solutions, and replaced our entire LAN infrastructure under our initial budget,” says Frieler. “And the cost savings continue each year with eliminated vendor maintenance, telecom carrier, and toll charges. We now handle adds, moves, and changes ourselves, which is big time and dollar savings when you consider that we have 63 buildings on a 382-acre campus. It used to take half a day to install a phone. It now takes five minutes.”

“Maybe the thing that impresses me most is the solution’s integration and scalability. There’s no confinement, and we’re able to give workers everywhere the tools that they need to better serve our patients. The Cisco solution you implement on day one is good on day 1000. That’s valuable to any agency or business.”

“The Cisco solution you implement on day one is good on day 1000. That’s valuable to any agency or business.”

William Frieler

Supervisory IT Specialist,

Dayton VA Medical Center

Next StepsDayton VAMC is evaluating the advantages of implementing Cisco TelePresenceTM to link with the Chalmers P. Wylie Independent Outpatient Clinic located in Columbus, Ohio to reduce time, expense, and patient inconvenience. TelePresence would enable doctors and patients to conduct meetings remotely, while as if in the same room, using high-quality audio, high-definition video, and interactive elements over the network.

“Right now, patients are routinely referred back and forth between Dayton and Columbus,” says Frieler. “With TelePresence, we could replace the hour-plus shuttle ride each way for a 30-minute surgical consultation with an ‘in person’ TelePresence video meeting, saving time and inconvenience for doctors and patients alike.”

For More Information To find out more about

the Cisco Unified

Communications family of

products for healthcare and

government agencies and

facilities, go to:

www.cisco.com/web/

strategy/healthcare/

index.html

Product ListVideo

Cisco TelePresence•

Voice and IP Communications

Cisco Unified Communications •

Cisco Unified Communications Manager •

Cisco Unity•

Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise•

Cisco Unified 7900 Series IP Phones•