The Mission

Effective communication is essential for hospitals and health care centres, without it the level of care they can provide is affected. Kirkliston Health Centre, prides itself on the highly professional and effective care it is able to provide its patients and has made a conscious decision to integrate its communication systems to help provide the greatest level of service and care possible.

Too little interaction and communication and vital information can be over looked, too much interaction and precious time can be wasted. What was required was a system that found a perfect compromise.

The Solution

The Health Centre is the first in Lothian to employ a system to help solve their communication problems; this was the Access 5000 from Multitone.

This choice was made because the Access 5000 provides all of the features of a traditional telephone system with many additional applications, allowing the user to select many different and varied options from a single system.

Access 5000 has such a range of features that the flexibility of the system enables it to be configured as a simple or complex communications server. The programming features of the system allow the administrator to allocate direct line numbers, automatic call divert on specific numbers, initiate "Night Service" at certain times each day, record messages for permanent or ad-hoc basis and all of this can be configured from an interactive PC based web browser. Again, the number of features offered and the flexibility of their use enable massive timesavings to be made.

For those health boards that have surgeries that work together there is the added bonus
of linking Access 5000 systems together to allow them to operate as one telephone system while still retaining their own individual on-site features such as direct line numbers etc.

The Benefit

The built in CTI application now allows the receptionist to see the individual patients information when that patient telephones the centre. This is extremely useful as the receptionist can see when the patient last visited the centre, whom they saw and what the complaint was about. The time saved not having to look for this information in a traditional filing system can now be spent actually attending to the patients needs.

Being able to automatically log the calls coming through the system means that there is access to a clear and concise audit trail if needed. This feature also allows the calls in and out of the centre to be analysed and regular reports can be run on anything from how many external calls are being made to how much these are costing the centre.

Smart desktop telephones can be employed on the system as well as DECT cordless telephones that allows staff members to move around the centre and still be able to make and receive telephone calls at all times.

With the Access 5000 auto attendant system active it means that patients calling into the system are able to chose who they wish to speak to as the system can break groups of telephones down into departments. This means that when someone calls the centre not all of the telephones have to ring; instead they can be grouped together. This enables the caller to select whether they wish to speak to a doctor, nurse or the in-house pharmacy. This frees up the receptionists time, allowing them to properly serve the patients they have in the surgery.

Each telephone can also have a direct line number allocated to it which means that personal calls, or calls from colleagues do not have to be routed through the telephone switchboard.

Alan Hush, Telecommunications Manager for NHS Lothian & NHS Borders, who has had many years of experience using Multitone paging products, chose Multitone's system and commented:

"I am impressed by the practicality and adaptability of the unit. The system has now
begun to prove its worth with clear savings being made in time, money and staff
resources. One clear benefit of the system is its ability to mix both voice and data
information in a single system. I expect that this will be the first of many sites where
we will roll out this system".

And for the future…

Any new local healthcare development or on-site development can be linked to the Access 5000 and as the system is expandable on request, easy to administer and user friendly, Kirkliston are guaranteed a busy but successful future.

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