Nortel Solutions Benefit Healthcare Industry; Communication Network Deployments Improve Patient Care, Business Continuity, Reduce Costs

Business Wire, Nov 22, 2004

TORONTO -- Nortel (NYSE:NT)(TSX:NT) announced today a series of network deployments at healthcare facilities in North America, helping hospitals provide superior patient care and improve service and security while enhancing communication capabilities and reducing costs.

Novant Health, Capital Health, Geisinger Health System and The Credit Valley Hospital have deployed secure and reliable Enterprise solutions from Nortel, including wireless local area networks (LANs) and optical and Internet Protocol (IP) technologies to enable mobility and bring information to the point of care instantly and reliably. In addition, Nortel also announced joint healthcare customers with BT in the United Kingdom, including The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust.

Healthcare-focused solutions from Nortel allow for multiple networks to be consolidated into a single communications infrastructure, resulting in improved infrastructure performance, significant savings and reduced operating costs. The solutions also make it possible for healthcare contact centers to route calls quickly to the most suitable agent, regardless of location, to ensure prompt, effective service.

"We selected Nortel to provide the utmost in business resiliency," said Toni Kourey, senior vice president and chief information officer, Novant Health. "Its complete converged solution provides connectivity across the entire Novant Health geographical infrastructure -- better yet, there is no single point of failure from a voice or data standpoint. This infrastructure is helping to deliver improved patient care and a better place to work for physicians and nurses."

The recent deployment of Novant Health's converged voice and data network leverages Nortel optical and IP Telephony infrastructure to ensure network availability and reliability for all of Novant Health's geographically-dispersed facilities. The converged solution enables instant access to applications such as patient medical records and exceeds current healthcare requirements for business continuity and disaster recovery planning while protecting and securing critical patient information. The new converged solution allows for backup, storage and retrieval of critical records for nearly 3.4 million patients.

"We work with healthcare providers to not only improve service to their customers but also ensure they exceed their ongoing communications needs in an industry where service is of mission-critical importance," said Dan Young, vice president, Global Industry Solutions Marketing, Nortel. "There is no other industry where timely communications are more essential. We work closely with our customers to determine how best to meet their requirements, whether ensuring doctors can collaborate regardless of location or simply enabling hospital staff to reach the right doctor at the right time without delay. The deployments announced today represent our commitment to providing industry-leading solutions with the reliability, security and productivity benefits that our customers demand while enhancing the human experience through communications."

Capital Health recently chose the Nortel Unified Messaging platform through Nortel Elite Advantage Partner TELUS Communications, Inc. to provide unified messaging services to more than 6,000 users in multiple facilities. Unified messaging solutions will enhance the ability of people to contact Capital Health personnel any time of the day through the Internet or by telephone. Converging messaging services also allows Capital Health personnel to respond to computer or voice messages in the caller-preferred manner.

Donna Strating, chief information officer of Capital Health, said that the enterprise-wide solution will reduce operating costs, simplify management and improve staff productivity.

Capital Health delivers public health, community health, outpatient and inpatient acute care, rehabilitative care and extended care services to more than one million residents in the greater Edmonton, Alberta region, including Capital Health Link, a continuously-available health advice line operated by registered nurses. Capital Health Link effectively addresses patients' questions and reduces unnecessary walk-ins to emergency rooms.

Additionally, Geisinger Health System, a 691-bed physician-led system serving residents throughout 38 counties in Central and Northeastern Pennsylvania, has deployed products and solutions from Nortel's award-winning Self-Service Solutions portfolio, as well as products from the Nortel IP Telephony portfolio. These solutions have resulted in the organization's call center decreasing its call abandonment rate by 37 percent while increasing its telephone customer service levels 19 percent. Additionally, Nortel's speech recognition solution allows callers to connect directly with the system's 600 doctors and more than 78 departments and 42 community practice sites through voice prompts.

"We looked at a number of voice system vendors, but we chose Nortel because of their ability to interface with our existing systems and their outstanding service," said Carol Swank, Geisinger's Access Center Director.