SpeechStorm System Helps Belfast
SpeechStorm System Helps Belfast
Belfast Health and Social Care Trust Chooses SpeechStorm System to Improve its Emergency Response
Belfast Health and Social Care Trust has deployed the first phase of a new Automated Emergency Response Management system to transform the way it handles and responds to urgent incidents.
The customised Emergency Notification Solution from SpeechStorm, a specialist in phone self-service systems, uses automated speech to free switchboard staff, by enabling self-service for some of its 20,000 staff.
The Trust wanted a system that would take the strain off its switchboard and speed up processes while providing timely and accurate management information vital to ensuring a coherent emergency service is provided.
Paul Duffy, Co-Director of IT and Telecoms at theTrust (Pictured) and his team rejected a number of suppliers in favour of SpeechStorm's solution, which will cut labour intensive aspects of pager management; improve incident response times and reporting; and so bring costs down.
In 2007, the Trust assumed responsibility for services provided by Belfast City Hospital and five other Trusts, becoming one of the UK's largest hospital trusts. It now employs around one in 30 of the total NI workforce - and it provides services to the whole of Northern Ireland.
Until now the Trust's ability to respond quickly and effectively to incidents relied on a manual process to collate and report on responses to emergencies by medical staff. The old system was based on pagers and was particularly resource intensive as it involved:
- The daily testing of pagers, resulting in hundreds of calls going through an already busy switchboard
- Weekly "scenario" testing, which necessitated the emergency responder to ring in and confirm their name and ETA, further stressing manning levels and clogging up switchboard capacity
Duffy said: "We recognised that to make this project a success, we would need guidance and expertise and a consultative partnership. SpeechStorm came with the experience, expertise in speech deployment and an approach that appealed to us. Here we are, a few short months later, with a system that we have rolled out to over half of our pilot groups," said Duffy
Duffy continued, "SpeechStorm has helped us to clarify our requirements and decode them, and as a result, we now have a system that is meeting all our requirements. We can record information more quickly; more pagers can be tested; we are clearly taking the strain off the switchboard; we have better and more comprehensive information so we can provide a better service within current staffing levels; and we have freed up switchboard staff to handle more general public calls."
The Belfast Trust's new emergency response system is underpinned by SpeechStorm's Emergency Notification solution which combines an automated, speech-based application, with web-based management control. This provides the Trust with a fully automated, real time facility for capturing acknowledgements from responding personnel, along with details of their availability to help with an incident.
The SpeechStorm system harnesses the Trust's existing data and telephone network and is being used in conjunction with its current emergency pager system, enabling the Trust to fully automate the testing of pagers and indeed test a greater number of pagers than before, while capturing the required management information in real time.
SpeechStorm CEO Oliver Lennon said: "We are delighted to have a progressive, forward looking organisation like the Belfast Trust using our technology. By adopting the SpeechStorm Emergency Notification solution, the Trust is able to replace its current live call-handling set-up, and provide a reliable and consistent self-service application, with 24/7 availability.This will have a tremendous impact on its efficiency and service, by keeping operating costs down," said Lennon.
SpeechStorm specialises in self-service solutions that manage customer interactions over the phone, using touchtone, SMS, Video or Voice. SpeechStorm transforms the simple phone into a rich interactive tool for accessing content, finding information and interacting with an organisation to fulfil customer requests and optimise customer care goals.
SpeechStorm offers a range of customisable self-service Emergency Management solutions for both public sector and private organisations. These run in a high-availability hosting centre to ensure maximum availability, while keeping ongoing administrative costs low.
Other Speechstorm users include Dixons Stores Group International, SITA Suez, eircom, Northern Ireland Electricity and Comet. Backed by a professional services capability of more than 250 consultants, SpeechStorm is part of Kainos, a leading IT consulting and Systems Integrator. SpeechStorm has offices in the UK and Ireland.
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