Nortel: Nortel Enhances Healthcare Networks to Improve the Patient Experience

Healthcare professionals face many challenges in today's hospitals. Two of the most urgent are reducing errors and speeding up administrative tasks to free more time for patient care. Nortel* [OTC: NRTLQ] healthcare solutions can enhance healthcare networks so that hospital staff have fewer things to distract them from the most important aspect of their job -- the patients.

In the fast-paced, ever-changing hospital environment, healthcare professionals must be able to communicate and access information reliably. Nortel understands this and is focused on providing the latest technology for healthcare institutions through new additions to its Healthcare Solution Portfolio

Patient Discharge Solution

Delays in the patient discharge process can be costly for healthcare institutions and frustrating for patients, who are anxious to get home or waiting to be admitted. The Nortel Patient Discharge solution combats this by introducing

Unified Communications

and removing inefficiencies within the discharge process. Creating interoperability between hospital systems, the Nortel solution delivers an automated work flow process which enables the discharging consultant to begin the discharge process from wherever they are.

Once the discharge process is activated, the Nortel solution can electronically sign off discharge documents, notify pharmacy staff to prepare prescriptions, and alert cleaning and catering staff to ready the bed for the next patient.

By connecting and automating hospital systems in this way, the Nortel solution not only reduces cost wastage and administrative tasks, it increases bed occupancy rates and, most importantly, improves the overall patient experience.

View an online demonstration - Nortel Patient Discharge Solution Introduction

Asset Tracking & Management Solution

Each year, healthcare institutions face significant losses as a result of misplaced or stolen hospital assets such as equipment being borrowed by another ward and failing to be located. The Nortel Asset Tracking and Management Solution can help cut these losses by tagging and connecting key equipment to the hospital WiFi network allowing staff to keep track of its location. This functionality can also be extended to automatically alert staff when assets need renewing or updating.

Time spent searching for equipment can also negatively impact patient care. Nortel's solution can reduce this time to mere seconds, instantly locating the asset and flagging the right person to contact, allowing nurses to spend more time with their patients.

Nortel understands the needs of each hospital differ and the Nortel Asset Tracking and Management Solution can be used to create bespoke solutions. The solution can be implemented to improve crash response times by alerting the doctor and locating a defibrillator closest to the emergency or, for inner city hospitals where assaults may be an issue, nurses can be provided with panic alarms that contact the closest security guard.

View an online demonstration - Nortel Asset Tracking & Management

Dealing with 'Did Not Attends'

Missed appointments are an issue of increasing concern for the UK National Health Service. The average cost of a missed appointment, classified as Did Not Attend (DNA), can be up to GBP100 and this cost can rise to as much as GBP150 for missed appointments at acute units.

Solutions from Nortel's Healthcare Portfolio can send reminders to each patient three days before their appointment, leading to a possible increase in attendance of up to 30 percent. This increase can be achieved with no additional administrative tasks for hospital staff as the interactive voice response system reminder is generated automatically. Hospitals that deploy a Nortel call centre solution also have the option of centralising other voice-based applications enabling automatic reminders elsewhere in the healthcare system.

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About Nortel

Nortel delivers 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. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com . For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news .

CONTACT: Jody Prescott, Nortel Tel: +44 (0) 1628 434190 e-mail: jodyp@nortel.com Greta Brown, Nortel Tel: (0)1628 432968 e-mail: gretab@nortel.com

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