VoIP prescription cures ailment: cost reductions, ease of use, additional functionality spur telephony change

Communications News, July, 2004

Eight different phone systems and more than 100 individual phone numbers for seven office locations spelled communications chaos for Consultants in Gastroenterology (CIG), an 11-physician, two-nurse practitioner firm serving the greater Kansas City, Mo., area. CIG also provides outpatient procedures at its two endoscopy center locations and serves eight hospitals.

"When I came on board last year, my first project was to develop a new network infrastructure," says David Schulman, manager of IT for CIG. "We had eight different phone systems by different vendors with separate maintenance agreements that were not at all integrated or connected. Whenever there was a problem, we had to call support--at a cost of $150 for a simple move, add or change. Plus, the systems were up to 10 years old, making it difficult to make those changes."

On top of complex, disparate phone systems, CIG had 100 DID numbers--or phone lines--meaning that every employee had a number. If a patient called a doctor, and he was not in the office, the call would forward to an answering service, as voice mail service was spotty. Each of rice had its own phone lines and phone numbers, making locating someone at another office difficult for company personnel. Additionally, an employee in each office was required to serve double duty as the system receptionist.

Schulman calls the plethora of phone lines--at $25-$50 per month each--"unwieldy" and "a" nightmare to manage." Plus, as Schulman explains, there was no concrete way to determine how many of the 100 DID numbers were actually being used, and by whom.

A UNIFIED TELEPHONE SYSTEM

Schulman's mission to implement a standard, unified telephone system became possible with voice over IP (VoIP), a technology that transmits ordinary telephone calls over the Internet as packets of information. Schulman's overall objective: a unified telephone system with centralized telephone lines and receptionist.

Additionally, he wanted a system that would not only better support patient care and scheduling workgroups, but one that could be maintained by in-house IT staff. The system would need to cost-effectively support remote offices ranging in size from three to 35 phones-and support growth.

After evaluating price and the in-house call center support offerings of several vendors, Schulman decided on AltiGen. "I wanted one vendor, one solution with a simple user interface," he says.

CIG chose one large AltiGen system--AltiWare 4.5-for its main business office. An AltiGen AltiServ Office Plus server (a high-capacity converged business telephone system that integrates the voice and data communications of telephones, voice mail, e-mail, work groups, and both local and remote IP calling) and AltiServ Contact Center software for CIG's patient care and scheduling workgroups were also chosen. AltiServ Contact Center offers advanced automatic call distribution, desktop PC client interfaces for agents and supervisors, enhanced call routing, and real-time detailed workgroup statistical reporting.

CIG also selected AltiGen's AltiView desktop client software, which allows workers to view caller IDs for incoming calls and gives users the ability to configure their own extensions to meet the needs of their daily schedules. For the receptionist, AltiGen's AltiConsole operator console, a feature-rich PC interface designed specifically for operators handling a high volume of calls, answers and routes all incoming or overflow calls to each location within the system. Specific features, such as three-digit system-wide dialing and one-number access, are benefits to the employees who travel between offices, as any employee is always accessible.

BANDWIDTH, RELIABILITY IMPROVED

After three months of what Schulman calls "leg-work," the initial installation-with help from Olathe, Kan.-based Network Innovations--took less than three weeks. "Before moving to VoIP we had a frame relay network in place," explains Schulman. "It was slow and did not support VoIP traffic. We were able to switch the network to point-to-point for the same cost as what we paid for frame relay, and, at the same time, increase bandwidth. We replaced routers and hubs to handle VoIP traffic and to improve overall data reliability."

Schulman says the installation was a phased process. "First was the business office, which we let run for two or three days, then we did another office and made sure the connectivity was fine." The final system was deployed and made its debut in October.

CIG now has one main phone number, from which all communications emanate. "We assigned three-digit extensions to everyone, whether or not they had a phone," Schulman explains,

The new communications system serves 125 staff members, from receptionists and physicians to nurses and call center employees. As many as 1,000 phone calls stream into the call center every day, where agents work to schedule appointments and connect patients with nurses and physicians.

With all eight of its sites utilizing a centralized phone system, CIG has drastically reduced its communications costs. "We used to spend between $2,000 and $3,000 a year in maintenance costs before," Schulman says. "That has been eliminated, as we now do maintenance and changes ourselves. We used to get patient complaints about not being able to reach someone live. Not anymore. And as far is internal staff, there were growing pains at first and people always hate change, but they were able to easily adapt."