January 15, 2008 - For Dearborn County Hospital in southeast IN, efficient yet responsive medical care depends on effective communication among doctors, staff, patients and patient families, and that will be aided with the deployment of the IP-based HiPath unified communications platform from Siemens Communications.
Located in Lawrenceburg, IN, Dearborn County Hospital has a workforce of about 800 employees and more than 115 physicians are on staff. As part of a major capital expansion that would add a new patient tower to the facility, Dearborn County Hospital decided to explore an upgrade to its wireline, TDM-based PBX communications system.
“We recognized that many communications advances had occurred over the past few years, and we wanted to see how they might help us advance the quality and efficiency of our patient care,” said Albert Mathews, assistant director of information systems and project manager, Dearborn County Hospital.
After talking with a number of vendors, the hospital issued a request for proposal to expand its traditional communications environment with a hybrid TDM/IP PBX solution, enabling the use of IP telephony while preserving the existing wiring infrastructure to save costs. Mathews also wanted to use IP communications to integrate the hospital's physician offices and outpatient facilities into a virtual hospital-wide system. The goal was to unify communications as well as centralize system management for easier administration and lower telecommunications expenses overall.
Siemens and Black Box Network Services unify its wireline communications and enhanced its emergency notification capabilities with the addition of a new wireless infrastructure. They installed a Siemens HiPath 4000 system with support for more than 700 digital stations, 600 analog stations, 60 IP station channels, and Primary Rate Interface trunks, as well as HiPath Xpressions system, enabling unified messaging for users.
For more information: www.usa.siemens.com