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NEC Unified Solutions Streamlines Hospital Communications With Intelligent Call Attendant

Posted on: Monday, 26 February 2007, 09:01 CST

NEC Unified Solutions, Inc. (NEC), a leader in VoIP and data communications, today announced the release of its UNIVERGE® Healthcare Attendant call management solution. Featuring advanced call-processing capabilities, enhanced directory functionality and improved connectivity to patient rooms and on-call staff, NEC's Healthcare Attendant enables organizations to quickly reach on-call physicians and caregivers and handle an increased volume of calls more efficiently while improving the overall patient care experience.

To assist hospital staff with handling a large volume of incoming calls, the VoIP-based Healthcare Attendant provides callers with a pre-determined menu of options allowing users to make selections based on employee extension, department, inquiry type or guest. Callers can quickly identify their desired points of contact without operator assistance with multiple directories for staff and patients, further saving administration time. These directories are easy to create and manage with drag-and-drop simplicity through the Healthcare Attendant's user-friendly interface.

Designed to overcome the challenges of quickly reaching physicians and hospital staff, Healthcare Attendant can be programmed with on-call staff schedules using solution tab s provided by the application. By simply clicking the on-call tab, users can locate available personnel based on priority, specialty or group. Moreover, users can initiate contact directly by clicking an entry button, saving precious time in emergency situations.

The Upper Valley Medical Center (UVMC), a 138-bed facility, serving Miami County, Ohio and the surrounding area, is already utilizing Healthcare Attendant to allow operators to answer a higher volume of calls and put them through faster.

"At UVMC, we're committed to providing the highest quality of patient care in a cost effective manner and NEC's Healthcare Attendant has helped us achieve this, allowing our operators to put through calls more quickly and efficiently," said Judy Boles, director, Telecommunications at UVMC. "The NEC team has been easy to work with, always willing to listen to any concerns and promptly respond to our requests."

Further enhancing timely medical response, a Procedure Manager component allows hospital staff to preload procedures for potential emergency or crisis situations. During a specific event or hospital emergency, attendants can initiate a detailed series of response protocols and instructions, including notification and contact of a specific person or group, conference initiation, group distribution alerts and instruction distribution. This critical information can be accessed when needed through the IP interface to assist in instances requiring rapid response. Other features include Physician Answering for immediate access to physician status, message sending and special instructions; On-call Manager; and Conference Calling applications.

"Healthcare organizations require the most efficient call management capabilities to ensure that calls are addressed by the appropriate contact, and that patients and staff stay connected during routine or emergency situations," said Paul Lopez, general manager, marketing at NEC Unified Solutions. "The NEC Healthcare Attendant reaffirms our dedication to understanding the unique communication challenges faced by the healthcare community, and demonstrates our drive to develop innovative new technologies that address the specific needs of patients and care providers alike."

NEC's Healthcare Attendant is HL7® (Health Level Seven) communications protocol compliant, ensuring it meets healthcare industry standards for reliability.

The Healthcare Attendant is currently available through authorized NEC dealers and vendors as UA5200 and is compatible with NEC's UNIVERGE SV7000 and NEAX Communications systems.

About NEC Unified Solutions, Inc.

NEC Unified Solutions Inc., a global leader in VoIP and data communications for the enterprise and small-medium business, delivers the industry's most innovative suite of products, applications and services that help customers achieve business value through technology. NEC Unified Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of NEC Corporation of America, offers a complete portfolio of solutions for wireless, unified communications, voice, data and management services, and an open migration path to protect investments. NEC Unified Solutions, Inc. serves Fortune 1000 customers across the globe in vertical markets such as hospitality, education, government and healthcare. For more information, visit www.necunified.com.

UNIVERGE is a registered trademark of NEC Corporation

Source: Business Wire

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