Customer stories

Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium

Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium secures life safety communication. Largest tribal health organization connects 140,000+ patients to care with OpenText™ CX-E Voice

Challenges

  • Stringent reliability, scalability, and redundancy requirements
  • Needed seamless integration with other communication infrastructure

Results

  • Connected patients to care with automated attendant

  • Enhanced collaboration and productivity among employees with unified communications

  • Secured life safety system with high level of redundancy

Story

Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium's (ANTHC) nearly 2,500 employees provide statewide services in specialty medical care; operate the 150-bed, state-of-the-art Alaska Native Medical Center hospital; lead construction of water, sanitation and health facilities around Alaska; offer community health and research services; lead innovative information technology; and offer professional recruiting to partners across the state. The Medical Center is the most stringent and demanding of the facilities, as it contains one of two Level II trauma centers and supports not only residents of Anchorage but people from across the state.

A doctor pointing to something on a clipboard to someone else.

CX-E enables us to be that much more responsive to our more than 140,000 patients and their families.

David Parker
Director of IT Service Continuity, ANTHC

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.

CX-E is that unflappable workhorse that we don’t have to think too much about. It just works.

David Parker
Director of IT Service Continuity, ANTHC

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.

About Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium

The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) is a non-profit healthcare organization based in Anchorage, Alaska, providing care throughout the state. As the largest, most comprehensive tribal health institution in the United States, and Alaska’s second-largest healthcare employer, ANTHC’s mission is to provide the highest quality health services for Alaska Native people.