Avaya Puts Intelligent Communications to Work to Improve Public Services

Avaya and its Partner community focus on solutions for government, education and healthcare at Avaya National Public Services Summit; Key themes at sixth annual event include improving public safety, service access and delivery, and opportunities for employment

04-Dec-2006 - BASKING RIDGE, N.J. – Avaya Inc. (NYSE:AV) and its Partner community are joining forces this week to help government, education and healthcare organizations use communications to improve the lives of the people they serve. During the sixth annual Avaya National Public Services Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada, Avaya and its AlliancePartners, BusinessPartners and DeveloperConnection members will focus on intelligent communications solutions that improve public safety, speed access to and delivery of services, and boost opportunities for employment.

Avaya is a global leader in business communications applications, systems and services. Along with its team of public service partners, the company helps organizations make sense of today’s array of communications technologies, including IP telephony, SIP, unified communications, wired and wireless. The innovative public sector solutions Avaya and its affiliated partners offer are built on the standards-based telephony, unified communications, contact center, conferencing and collaboration capabilities found in the Avaya MultiVantage® Communications Applications portfolio. Using open standards helps organizations incorporate new mission-critical capabilities without strapping their budget.

“Public service organizations have a great opportunity to provide better, more cost-effective service to their constituents with intelligent communications,” said Kevin Cook, vice president, North America, Avaya. “The Avaya National Public Services Summit is a working forum for Avaya and our partners to discuss the current market trends, the needs of these dynamic organizations and the role that communications solutions can play to help them deliver more value while optimizing their resources.”

Health and safety applications for emergency response
The Avaya summit will highlight a number of public safety solutions which are available today. One example is a software application proactively alerts citizens to what they should do in the event of an emergency, such as the one used by Orange County, Florida to distribute “boil water” alerts. Similar technology for healthcare organizations to calls patients who need to make an appointment, allows them to schedule the appointment while on the line, and subsequently makes a reminder call.

For educational institutions and other public service organizations, Avaya will showcase an application that instantly notifies key internal personnel when a 911 call is placed. The same enhanced 911 software can pinpoint the location of the caller and help speed the delivery of emergency services. When a malicious or threatening call is received, organizational personnel can simply push a button to “trap” the line and simultaneously record the call and notify authorities.

Mobility and contact center solutions that extend an organization’s reach
Mobility solutions to be showcased at the Avaya summit enable faster and better coordinated emergency response and promote continuity of operations. Among them is the Avaya Mobile Communications System – a complete voice and data system mounted in a vehicle or packed in a rugged mobile case. The system can be quickly connected to any type network for communications in remote or temporary locations.

Other featured mobility solutions include applications to support end users on the go. Doctors traveling between offices, clinics and hospitals in healthcare systems can be reached by having calls made to their published phone number extended to their cell phone, just as if they were at their desk. Colleges and universities can use similar applications to deliver new services to the ever-growing number of cell phones used by students and faculty.

Avaya also will showcase rich, converged contact center applications that reduce costs while driving greater efficiencies, better service and collaboration. Patented software automatically routes calls to the employee who can best assist, and computer-telephony integrated (CTI) applications “pop” relevant information on the worker’s computer as the call arrives. For even greater efficiency, self-service applications allow patients to schedule their own appointments or refill medications, citizens to pay fees and fines, and students to check academic or account records. Cook County, Ill., the second largest county in the U.S. uses self-service applications across 12 different departments, including refilling prescriptions for between 1,600 and 2,000 county hospital patients each day.

IP-based contact center applications from Avaya and its partners also allow local 911 emergency calling operations to link multiple sites and to use remote workers for backup. Hurricane-prone Galveston County, Texas connects eight facilities on an IP Telephony network, which also allows remote workers to access operations when conditions prohibit travel to a facility. This same distributed architecture can link 311 centers and other non-emergency operations, offloading all but the most critical calls in times of disaster.

Equalizing opportunities for the underserved
With Avaya IP telephony and accessibility features, public service organizations can overcome geographical boundaries and extend job opportunities and services to underserved segments of the population. IP-based networks can incorporate branch, remote and home offices located nearly anywhere - eliminating the need to live in or commute to more densely populated areas. Collaboration and conferencing tools support group interaction across distances, making virtual classrooms and meetings as effective as discussions held around the table.

Compliance with government regulations
Avaya-based communications solutions help organizations comply with state and federal regulations for security and accessibility. Avaya MultiVantage Communications Applications, including Avaya Communication Manager, Avaya Modular Messaging, and Avaya Interactive Response, as well as Avaya IP Office solutions for smaller agencies and organizations, comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and are accessible by people with disabilities. Avaya Communication Manager IP telephony software provides end-to-end media and signaling encryption to help prevent unauthorized access to content and conversations.

Note to editors: Backgrounders of customer examples by vertical industry are available on request.

About Avaya
Avaya Inc. designs, builds and manages communications networks for more than one million businesses worldwide, including 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500®. Focused on businesses large to small, Avaya is a world leader in secure and reliable Internet Protocol (IP) telephony systems and communications software applications and services.

Driving the convergence of voice and data communications with business applications – and distinguished by comprehensive worldwide services – Avaya helps customers leverage existing and new networks to achieve superior business results. For more information visit the Avaya website: http://www.avaya.com. For more information about Avaya communications solutions for government, education and healthcare, please visit:
Government:
www.avaya.com/gcm/master-usa/en-us/industry/sectors/government/government.htm
Education:
www.avaya.com/gcm/master-usa/en-us/industry/sectors/education/education%20january%202006.htm
Healthcare:
www.avaya.com/gcm/master-usa/en-us/industry/sectors/healthcare/healthcarejan06.htm

Contact Information

Deb Kline

Media Relations

Avaya Inc.

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