Geisinger Health System Transforms Patient Care by Improving
Communication and Offering More Self Service Options for Patients
Nortel Solutions Enhance Patient Care, Expand Call Center
Functionality
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- February 26, 2007 --
Geisinger Health System, which serves 2.5 million people in its
network of hospitals and physicians across 20,000 square miles, is
tapping the power of Nortel(1) (TSX: NT)(NYSE: NT) IP Contact Center
solutions to deliver time-saving services for both practitioners and
patients. The solutions are part of Nortel's clinical grade
Healthcare Solutions.
By improving its call center communications, Geisinger has created a
single virtual contact center spanning wide geographical areas,
allowing calls that were once manually routed by operators at various
locations to now be automatically routed to the most appropriate
agent. Geisinger's new contact center capabilities also include
immediate routing of calls to doctors IP wireless phone, regardless
of their location.
"We handle more than 9,000 calls a day across various call centers
that staff 400 agents to perform various tasks," said Gary Keefer,
director of voice systems for Geisinger Health System. "With each of
those calls averaging 2.5 minutes, it became obvious that we needed a
solution that would enhance collaboration between the call center and
doctors while making it faster for patients to get answers to their
questions."
Previously, multiple call centers were fielding calls such as
scheduling and confirming patient appointments, calls from referring
physicians, or handling IT inquiries. Now, skill-based routing
directs calls to the appropriate specialty such as orthopedics or
obstetrics, to a general appointment queue, or to wherever client
assistance can be best provided. Also, Geisinger is starting to
utilize Nortel IP wireless phones to allow physicians and
administrators to work collaboratively with the contact center and
the patient, regardless of location, quickly answering complex
questions and improving first call resolution.
"The flexibility that IP has brought to Geisinger is hard to express
in dollars and cents," Keefer said. "We can quickly and easily
install IP phones where they are needed. Having that convenience to
save a doctor even 10 seconds could be worth a great deal to
Geisinger and its patients."
With the introduction of Nortel's Contact Center using Expert
Anywhere solution that also includes Multimedia Communication Server
(MCS) 5100, Nortel IP Phones, and Media Processing Server (MPS) 500,
Geisinger has transformed multiple call centers into a single virtual
contact center with Interactive Voice Response (IVR). Nortel's IVR
technology empowers patients to manage their own service. Callers can
listen to instructions on pre- and post- surgery care, answer quick
health surveys and still be assured that answers which fall out of
the "normal" range will alert a nurse to provide additional care or
consultation.
"Nortel's Multimedia solutions for healthcare are bringing
practitioners and patients together faster and much more
effectively," said Dave Murashige, general manager, Multimedia
Applications, Nortel. "Geisinger has extended its reach and optimized
resources by creating a virtual contact center that has improved
communication between staff, doctors and patients. But most
importantly, it has made accessing care simpler for thousands of
people who need immediate attention."
Through previous deployment of products and solutions from Nortel's
award-winning Self-Service Solutions portfolio, as well as products
from the Nortel IP Telephony portfolio, Geisinger had a foundation of
Nortel technology and was able to expand its capabilities without
adding additional hardware. Nortel's Communication Server 1000 was
selected because hardware could be kept at the main site, which
simplified maintenance to that one location.
Additional Nortel solutions implemented at Geisinger Health System
include CallPilot Unified Messaging to help simplify faxing and
reduce expenses, and WLAN IP Telephone Handsets for wireless
mobility.
About Nortel
Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications
capabilities that make the promise of Business Made Simple a reality
for our customers. Our next-generation technologies, for both service
provider and enterprise networks, support multimedia and
business-critical applications. Nortel's technologies are designed to
help eliminate today's barriers to efficiency, speed and performance
by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they
need, when they need it. Nortel does business in more than 150
countries around the world. For more information, visit Nortel on the
Web at www.nortel.com. For the latest Nortel news, visit
www.nortel.com/news.
Certain statements in this press release may contain words such as
"could", "expects", "may", "anticipates", "believes", "intends",
"estimates", "targets", "envisions", "seeks" and other similar
language and are considered forward-looking statements or information
under applicable securities legislation. These statements are based
on Nortel's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and
projections about the operating environment, economies and markets in
which Nortel operates. These statements are subject to important
assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict
and the actual outcome may be materially different. Further, actual
results or events could differ materially from those contemplated in
forward-looking statements as a result of the following
(i) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's restatements and
related matters including: Nortel's most recent restatement and two
previous restatements of its financial statements and related events;
the negative impact on Nortel and NNL of their most recent
restatement and delay in filing their financial statements and
related periodic reports; legal judgments, fines, penalties or
settlements, or any substantial regulatory fines or other penalties
or sanctions, related to the ongoing regulatory and criminal
investigations of Nortel in the U.S. and Canada; any significant
pending civil litigation actions not encompassed by Nortel's proposed
class action settlement; any substantial cash payment and/or
significant dilution of Nortel's existing equity positions resulting
from the approval of its proposed class action settlement; any
unsuccessful remediation of Nortel's material weaknesses in internal
control over financial reporting resulting in an inability to report
Nortel's results of operations and financial condition accurately and
in a timely manner; the time required to implement Nortel's remedial
measures; Nortel's inability to access, in its current form, its
shelf registration filed with the United States Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC), and Nortel's below investment grade credit
rating and any further adverse effect on its credit rating due to
Nortel's restatements of its financial statements; any adverse affect
on Nortel's business and market price of its publicly traded
securities arising from continuing negative publicity related to
Nortel's restatements; Nortel's potential inability to attract or
retain the personnel necessary to achieve its business objectives;
any breach by Nortel of the continued listing requirements of the
NYSE or TSX causing the NYSE and/or the TSX to commence suspension or
delisting procedures;
(ii) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's business including:
yearly and quarterly fluctuations of Nortel's operating results;
reduced demand and pricing pressures for its products due to global
economic conditions, significant competition, competitive pricing
practice, cautious capital spending by customers, increased industry
consolidation, rapidly changing technologies, evolving industry
standards, frequent new product introductions and short product life
cycles, and other trends and industry characteristics affecting the
telecommunications industry; the sufficiency of recently announced
restructuring actions, including the potential for higher actual
costs to be incurred in connection with these restructuring actions
compared to the estimated costs of such actions and the ability to
achieve the targeted cost savings and reductions of Nortel's unfunded
pension liability deficit; any material and adverse affects on
Nortel's performance if its expectations regarding market demand for
particular products prove to be wrong or because of certain barriers
in its efforts to expand internationally; any reduction in Nortel's
operating results and any related volatility in the market price of
its publicly traded securities arising from any decline in its gross
margin, or fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; any
negative developments associated with Nortel's supply contract and
contract manufacturing agreements including as a result of using a
sole supplier for key optical networking solutions components, and
any defects or errors in Nortel's current or planned products; any
negative impact to Nortel of its failure to achieve its business
transformation objective; additional valuation allowances for all or
a portion of its deferred tax assets; Nortel's failure to protect its
intellectual property rights, or any adverse judgments or settlements
arising out of disputes regarding intellectual property; changes in
regulation of the Internet and/or other aspects of the industry;
Nortel's failure to successfully operate or integrate its strategic
acquisitions, or failure to consummate or succeed with its strategic
alliances; any negative effect of Nortel's failure to evolve
adequately its financial and managerial control and reporting systems
and processes, manage and grow its business, or create an effective
risk management strategy; and
(iii) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's liquidity,
financing arrangements and capital including: the impact of Nortel's
most recent restatement and two previous restatements of its
financial statements; any inability of Nortel to manage cash flow
fluctuations to fund working capital requirements or achieve its
business objectives in a timely manner or obtain additional sources
of funding; high levels of debt, limitations on Nortel capitalizing
on business opportunities because of support facility covenants, or
on obtaining additional secured debt pursuant to the provisions of
indentures governing certain of Nortel's public debt issues and the
provisions of its support facility; any increase of restricted cash
requirements for Nortel if it is unable to secure alternative support
for obligations arising from certain normal course business
activities, or any inability of Nortel's subsidiaries to provide it
with sufficient funding; any negative effect to Nortel of the need to
make larger defined benefit plans contributions in the future or
exposure to customer credit risks or inability of customers to
fulfill payment obligations under customer financing arrangements;
any negative impact on Nortel's ability to make future acquisitions,
raise capital, issue debt and retain employees arising from stock
price volatility and further declines in the market price of Nortel's
publicly traded securities, or the share consolidation resulting in a
lower total market capitalization or adverse effect on the liquidity
of Nortel's common shares. For additional information with respect to
certain of these and other factors, see Nortel's Annual Report on
Form10-K/A, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other securities
filings with the SEC. Unless otherwise required by applicable
securities laws, Nortel disclaims any intention or obligation to
update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result
of new information, future events or otherwise.
(1)Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel
Networks.
Contacts:
Nortel
Mary Pretotto
(905) 863-7777
Email: maryp@nortel.com
Website: www.nortel.com
