PARIS, March 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alcatel (NYSE: ALA; Paris: CCEP.PA) announced that St. John's Episcopal Hospital, of Far Rockaway, NY, has deployed an Alcatel converged voice and data communications solution that improves network reliability and the overall communications experience for both staff and patients alike.
St. John's is a 332-bed community teaching hospital with an adjacent 163-bed nursing home serving the Rockaways and the Five Towns areas. St. John's, operated by Episcopal Health Service Inc. (EHS), a not-for-profit healthcare company, serves Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau Counties.
Hospital officials have invested in a converged communications system in part to enable them to integrate healthcare applications with the telephony system to improve staff access to information and patient access to doctors. Handling over 400 calls per hour, this type of system is essential to EHS' success.
"Reliable communication is a major factor in the way the hospital does business -- any downtime could impact patient care, and that is unacceptable," said Glenn Taber, Director of Technical Services & Operations for EHS.
The Alcatel OmniPCX Enterprise replaces an aging voice communications network. St. John's worked with Alcatel Business Partner Verizon Enterprise Solutions Group to create a homogenous voice communications network across the campus that simplifies system management through a single management tool and offers users the same feature set from any phone.
According to Taber, the server-based Alcatel OmniPCX Enterprise will soon allow St. John's to integrate the telephony system with the hospital's health information system to provide call automation and reduce the burden of growing call volumes. Future applications include wireless campus mobility and widespread IP telephony.
The foundation of the converged network is a new Gigabit Ethernet backbone network based on the Alcatel OmniSwitch 7800 that replaced an ATM network. Users get a 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet connection to this network through Alcatel OmniStack 6600 stackable switches deployed throughout the hospital and EHS headquarters. The 2,400-port network comes complete with Alcatel's Smart Continuous Switching features for reliability.
"After evaluating a number of alternatives that turned out to be more complicated and costly, we found that the Alcatel converged solution offered exceptional technology benefits and was easier to manage, at a lower price point -- all-in-all a better solution," Taber concluded.
Tom Burns, Senior Vice President and GM of Alcatel's network infrastructure activities noted, "Alcatel realizes the needs of healthcare providers to deliver quality health services while watching the bottom line -- a reliable network can provide the business applications to accomplish that. Pairing high-end features and value enables enterprises to protect their current investment and migrate to the future seamlessly, while supporting business-enhancing applications with confidence."
About Alcatel
Alcatel provides communications solutions to telecommunication carriers, Internet service providers and enterprises for delivery of voice, data and video applications to their customers or to their employees. Alcatel leverages its leading position in fixed and mobile broadband networks, applications and services to bring value to its customers in the framework of a broadband world. With sales of EURO 12.3 billion in 2004, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. For more information, visit Alcatel on the Internet: http://www.alcatel.com/
About Alcatel Enterprise solutions
With more than 500,000 customers, Alcatel is a leading provider of communication solutions to small, medium, and large enterprises, as well as to public sector institutions worldwide. Alcatel's enterprise portfolio provides business communication applications, including Unified Communications and Contact Centers, an advanced IP Telephony offering, and IP Networking products. Alcatel's enterprise solutions deliver an enhanced competitive edge to businesses of all sizes by increasing customer satisfaction, employee productivity, and operational efficiencies.
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