Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium

Time to upgrade

With an average call volume of 85,000 per month, ANTHC needed a dependable, redundant, always-available automated attendant to efficiently manage and process high call volume and ensure uptime across all divisions.

At the time of ANTHC’s founding in 1997, the organization was using a Centigram system tied to a Fujitsu PBX. But as needs changed and ANTHC expanded, a new system was required. ANTHC Director of IT Service Continuity David Parker was tasked with finding a future-proof replacement that delivered automated attendant, voicemail, and unified messaging applications with the highest levels of reliability and scalability.

Parker selected OpenText™ CX-E Voice for several reasons. “With its long history of supporting top healthcare hospitals and clinics, CX-E was the only solution that could meet our stringent uptime requirements,” he said. “With such a high call volume, we needed a dependable system to ensure effective communication when lives are on the line. CX-E enables us to be that much more responsive to our more than 140,000 patients and their families.”

CX-E was also the clear choice because it provided a seamless integration to ANTHC’s IT infrastructure with support for the organization’s existing Fujitsu PBX as well as for Avaya and Cisco, which were the vendor telephony switches ANTHC was migrating to at the same time. “CX-E enables us to explore what is new in mobile and voice applications without disrupting what we have today,” Parker said.

“Interoperability and Centigram TUI (Telephone User Interface) in CX-E allowed for a smooth transition and minimal user training,” Parker added.

Time to upgrade

With an average call volume of 85,000 per month, ANTHC needed a dependable, redundant, always-available automated attendant to efficiently manage and process high call volume and ensure uptime across all divisions.

At the time of ANTHC’s founding in 1997, the organization was using a Centigram system tied to a Fujitsu PBX. But as needs changed and ANTHC expanded, a new system was required. ANTHC Director of IT Service Continuity David Parker was tasked with finding a future-proof replacement that delivered automated attendant, voicemail, and unified messaging applications with the highest levels of reliability and scalability.

Parker selected OpenText™ CX-E Voice for several reasons. “With its long history of supporting top healthcare hospitals and clinics, CX-E was the only solution that could meet our stringent uptime requirements,” he said. “With such a high call volume, we needed a dependable system to ensure effective communication when lives are on the line. CX-E enables us to be that much more responsive to our more than 140,000 patients and their families.”

CX-E was also the clear choice because it provided a seamless integration to ANTHC’s IT infrastructure with support for the organization’s existing Fujitsu PBX as well as for Avaya and Cisco, which were the vendor telephony switches ANTHC was migrating to at the same time. “CX-E enables us to explore what is new in mobile and voice applications without disrupting what we have today,” Parker said.

“Interoperability and Centigram TUI (Telephone User Interface) in CX-E allowed for a smooth transition and minimal user training,” Parker added.

Reliable automated attendant for high call volume

An automated attendant is critical to route ANTHC’s heavy inbound call traffic. ANTHC IT staff has implemented multiple automated attendant menus based on time of day, day of week, holidays, etc., at a variety of locations from the pharmacy to patient housing so callers automatically receive the appropriate message. The high level of redundancy offered through the CX-E Neverfail implementation ensures the call processing system is always available and extremely reliable. “All life safety systems must have a high level of redundancy,” Parker said. “CX-E is that unflappable workhorse that we don’t have to think too much about. It just works.”

Unified messaging for greater mobility

CX-E delivers unified messaging to almost 2,500 ANTHC employees. This has led to greater levels of collaboration and gives employees the freedom to be away from their desks, knowing they have access to voicemails from any mobile device, email and the web. ANTHC offers its users a seamless unified messaging experience using a premisebased email system today—or cloud-based system in the future.

Growth for a digital future

As ANTHC furthers its mission to improve the health of Alaska Native people, the organization expects to grow in scale and services offered. With expansion comes the need for greater levels of productivity. ANTHC plans to explore additional CX-E communications features, such as context-aware personal attendant, speech, and fax capabilities. As a trusted partner, OpenText will continue to work with ANTHC every step of the way.