Avaya Spotlights New Healthcare Communications Innovations at HIMSS Industry Event

Leader in Unified Communications and Customer Service Technologies Demonstrates New Tools to Improve Healthcare Staff Productivity and Quality of Patient Care

HIMSS, Chicago, Illinois – Avaya, Inc., a leader in business communications applications, systems and services, is unveiling new communications solutions and innovations for the healthcare industry at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) 2009 Conference and Exhibition, occurring April 4 – 8 in Chicago, IL. The new healthcare technologies, demonstrated at Avaya’s booth (#332), will show how advanced communications can help healthcare organizations achieve higher levels of patient aid and service, while improving staff productivity in a rapidly changing work environment.

At HIMSS, Avaya will introduce and show new applications from its portfolio of Avaya Proactive Outreach for Healthcare solutions, which use outbound communications, self-service and speech automation for enhanced customer interactions. Avaya Proactive Outreach for Healthcare solutions proactively reach out to customers and employ self-service systems to let customers speak their information and complete transactions. The solutions can improve provider-to-patient and provider-to-provider interactions, streamlining the delivery of both clinical and business services, and improving customer service in a cost-effective way.

The applications, designed by Avaya Global Services, are being demonstrated for the first time at the HIMSS event. They include:


* 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.