East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust serves some 500,000 people every year across three main hospitals: Hertford County in Hertford, the Lister in Stevenage and the Queen Elizabeth II (QEII) in Welwyn Garden City.
The trust employs over 5,000 staff and deals with millions of calls each year. Managing these calls to ensure patients are responded to quickly and efficiently is vital for a trust this size.
At a minimum, the trust required a system that will pick up all call data and allow it to track and measure telephony use. This not only allows the trust to monitor how efficiently calls are responded to but also to ensures that this response is provided in the most effective manner possible. From an infrastructure point of view, the trust needs to ensure that line utilization is optimised while inter-site calls are routed in the most resourceful manner.
Carl Rolph, Head of Telecommunications at East and North Hertfordshire NHS states; "At the trust, we strive for excellence and continuous improvement. My job at the trust is to ensure we utilize the best technology available to allow us to effectively manage a site of this complexity. We also demand that any technology employed offers tangible results to us and our patients."
The existing call logger was quite old and expensive to run. Also, it did not embrace many of the new technologies on offer so we spent a lot of time administering it in an attempt to get the best use possible out of it.
We discussed the limitations of our old call logger with our Avaya PBX maintainer, Lancashire-based solutions provider, DXP, and asked them if they could suggest some alternatives that would help us address these limitations.
East and North Herts NHS has had a close working relationship with DXP for many years. When discussing the limitations of his old system, Phil Sawyer recommended they look at Tri-Line's TIM Enterprise. A trial was subsequently set up and Carl ran both systems in tandem to compare.
DXP's Sawyer adds, "We pride ourselves on a professional approach that delivers measurable results. TIM Enterprise is a perfect portfolio product for us - it's reliable, innovative and offers our clients complete business transparency. We've deployed it across a number of 2000 user+ sites over the last year and all agree, it's a fantastic product."
Phil continues; "As soon as Carl mentioned his struggles with his old system we did not hesitate to recommend TIM Enterprise. It fits perfectly with our idea of cost-effectively managing the lifecycle of his voice and data communication networks while working seamlessly with the Avaya switches we maintain on site. In a discriminating Trust of this size we need to ensure that best-of-breed products are deployed and we believe that once again we delivered."
As an NHS Trust, we must have accurate call stats in order to monitor our service levels. Tri-Line's service more than exceeds our expectations. If we call their support desk, we get through to a live person who knows and understands their products and can provide answers without having to transfer us around the organisation. We never have to leave messages on voicemail or wait hours for calls to be returned.
We are kept updated on the product range and are entitled to all standard upgrades as part of our maintenance contract. Tri-Line are an Avaya DevConnect technology partner and keep their products compliance tested so we're comfortable that there won't be any compatibility issues between TIM Enterprise and our ACM.
As well as being able to rely on the information, Tri-Line's call logger allows us to provide remote access to unlimited users via a standard web browser. This allows department managers to monitor their own areas effectively. We can restrict access so that users only see the call information that relates to their area of interest. This prevents staff members trawling through reports that offer them no tangible benefits.
We can also relax knowing that as new software upgrades are applied to our Avaya telephone system by DXP, they simply advise Tri-Line and our TIM Enterprise is upgraded if applicable - FREE of charge - as it's covered under maintenance.
All new TIM Enterprise software releases are issued automatically as part of maintenance too so we can relax secure in the knowledge that we haven't invested in a system and that we are not hit with unexpected hidden upgrade charges as time goes on.
We are so impressed that we've just upgraded the call loggers at West and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust to TIM Enterprise also.
