06/04/06: King’s College
Hospital Trust has signed a significant 3-year deal
with telephony solutions provider gematech, for its
BCMLITE business continuity solution. Provided as
a fully managed service, the gematech solution will
protect King’s College Hospital against any
loss of service for all inbound calls in the event
of a telecoms system failure.
As one of the largest and busiest
hospital trusts in London, providing healthcare
services to over 700,000 people each year, and
globally recognised as a major teaching hospital
and research facility, King’s College Hospital
receives on average 1.8 million in-bound calls
each year. Guaranteeing the resilience and availability
of its telecommunications system is therefore a
critical consideration for the Trust.
The gematech system will be implemented
alongside a new All-Figure-Number (AFN) comprising
a block of 10,000 new 020 3 DDIs supplied by the
new third-party Carrier which is replacing the
Trust’s existing 020 7 DDI number range.
Dave Bailey, ICT telecoms manager
at King’s College Hospital comments, “Our
requirement initially seemed relatively simple;
we wanted to put in place a new 10,000 number AFN
because we had run out of existing DDI numbers.
However, we also wanted the ability to intercept
the old numbers, and to inform the caller of the
new number via recorded message, played on an individual
DDI basis as well as building in resilience and
business continuity to the Trusts existing telephony
platform.
He continues, “After a full
review of the available solutions, we chose the
gematech BCMLITE solution because it was the only
system available that was capable of providing
all the functionality we needed.”
BCMLITE will automatically re-route
all incoming calls directed to King’s College
Hospital’s existing 020 7 DDIs to the new
020 3 numbers, whilst providing the caller with
a recorded notification of the new number on an
individual DDI basis. In addition, the system provides
sophisticated re-routing of all incoming calls
received on an individual DDI basis to any alternative
location specified in the event of a telecommunications
failure, allowing the Trust to seamlessly operate ‘business
as usual’.
Commenting on the decision to
choose gematech, Bailey states, “When considering
the adoption of this upgrade, as an integral part
of porting all of inbound and outbound traffic
to the new third-party Carrier under the Hospital
Framework Agreement, the new internal system the
Trust’s Board had to be satisfied that everything
in our power had been done to provide a comprehensive
business continuity solution for our inbound telephony.
Having provided two separate PBXs for increased
resilience within the Hospital, we are completely
in the hands of our selected Carrier, when it comes
to what happens outside the hospital. Adoption
of the gematech solution, incorporating ISDN30
circuits from two separate third-party Carrier
transits will provide us with a tremendously flexible
re-routing capability for added resilience.”
Bailey continues, “One of
our main concerns has always been to understand
what happens when our physical telephone circuits
leave the Trust, as we have no control over this.
In the past, with such a complex network we have
never been able to find out how all of these lines
actually route. Whilst diversely re-routing all
of these lines would have been a solution, the
cost of actually doing this would be horrendously
expensive. When speaking with gematech, we found
that the BCMLITE had a vast amount of capability
in providing flexible management for the re-routing
of calls.”
Bailey concludes, “The Trust
relies very greatly on its communications both
in and out of the hospital – without business
continuity measures in place, the effects could
be severe. Having the BCMLITE in place will be
critical in maintaining an efficient NHS service
and improving performance throughout King’s
College Hospital Trust.”
About
GemaTech:
GemaTech designs and develops products and solutions which deliver
telephony business continuity and secure voice recording by obviating
telecommunication failure and aiding dispute resolution respectively.
GemaTech
has over 10 years expertise in developing niche
applications for the telecommunications industry.
Founded in 1995, and headquartered in Guernsey,
GemaTech also has operations in Basingstoke,
and San Diego.
GemaTech
specialise in delivering cost effective, scaleable
solutions ensuring that organisations, large
or small, can benefit from the deployment of
gematech’s innovative technology delivering
measurable and quantifiable returns on investment.
GemaTech’s
unique business continuity products and services
are capable of ensuring the instantaneous, seamless
and total recovery of 100% of an organisation’s
incoming calls, the lifeblood of any company,
by intelligently re-directing any number of individual
DDIs to any number of alternative destinations – and
activated in seconds after an invocation.
GemaTech’s
secure voice recording product, available as
an additional module to enhance the business
continuity products, enables all re-routed calls
to be call recorded, as well as a stand alone
product delivering a number of unique features
including dual channel or “stereo” recording
of all calls, ideal for dispute resolution.
GemaTech
has customers across many vertical sectors, including
financial services, banking and insurance and
the travel industry. Some of GemaTech’s
key customers include, Travel Councellors, Regency
Mortgage Brokers, Kudos Research, Access Accounting,
Message Labs, Ultimate Insurance and Richmond
Corporate Services.
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