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Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust deploys CTI Group’s Proteus Enterprise for total call management solution
Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT) is one of the nation’s busiest NHS Foundation Trusts, with more than 900,000 patient contacts every year. Additionally, the Trust is one of the largest local employers in South London with nearly 11,000 staff working across its locations in Southwark (Guy’s) and Lambeth (St Thomas’).
GSTT handles approximately 20,000 phone calls on a daily basis across more than 11,000 individual lines on its telecoms network. Due to the high volume of calls, and the various departments and on-site third parties that use the telecoms system, GSTT required a reliable and robust call management system. The system needed to be able to deliver daily trustworthy statistical reports for a wide range of criteria, including:
• Bill checking / cost verification – ensuring that its carrier’s call charges are accurate
• Extension monitoring
• Billing back to private customers as well as third party service providers such as onsite concession holders
• Security and fraud prevention
• Call traffic monitoring
• Performance monitoring – how quickly are incoming calls being answered
• Business management / trend analysis tool - understand busy and quiet periods and ensure staffing levels are reflected appropriately
A further vital requirement was for the call management system to be flexible and scaleable - both in terms of the telephony platforms it integrates with and ensuring that there is no requirement for a major technology refresh of the system when they review and, potentially, change their core telephony systems.
The Solution
GSTT chose Proteus Enterprise from CTI Group as an upgrade to their existing call management solution. Proteus Enterprise is designed to offer effortless and scaleable call management from large SMEs to global businesses. It sees the functionality and reporting capabilities that are core to Proteus being delivered through a new front-end dashboard. Information is instantly available via automated reports that offer ‘click through’ and ‘drill down’ from the main screen.
Proteus offered GSTT a user-friendly graphical front-end dashboard that is constantly updated providing real-time call information. ‘Click through’ and ‘drill down’ reporting is offered directly from the dashboard. Quick and easy access to historical data is also an important feature.
By installing Proteus Enterprise, call records collected from the telecoms system are continuously checked against a set of userdefined trigger points. Once triggered, an alert is sent via email or an SNMP trap to provide an immediate and proactive warning of potential fraud. Among the customer benefits are:
• Unanswered calls are identified to improve customer satisfaction
• Cost reduction through the identification of expensive calls as they happen
• Up-to-the-minute projections to help control costs and improve budgeting
• Monitor switches to confirm that they are functioning correctly
Lee Essex of CTI Group commented, “In many ways Guy’s and St Thomas’ is the ideal client for CTI Group in that they are innovative and approachable yet demanding. Their Telecommunications Department utilises technology to streamline the whole organisation’s business processes which enhances the workers’ experiences. This open dialogue has resulted in the development of a true partnership between GSTT and CTI Group.”
Battling Fraud
Telecoms fraud is a serious consideration for organisations both large and small. In 2008 alone, it is estimated that dial-through fraud cost UK businesses around £1.3bn. Without a robust call accounting system, it is not until an organisation receives its monthly bill that it will be aware that it was a victim of fraud.
Helen Stanger, Telecommunications Manager for Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust, stated, “In a large organisation such as Guy’s and St Thomas’, ensuring the safety and security of the communications network is vital. The instant trigger mechanism at the core of the Proteus Enterprise with Fraud Guard solution provides us with confidence and the peace of mind to know that if any criminal activity is attempted we will be alerted immediately.”
The Benefits
Proteus Enterprise includes a sophisticated Report Wizard which enables administrators to create and run customised reports in a matter of seconds. The simple Call Cost Calculator allows administrators to calculate the cost of calls for forecasting purposes, while running a carrier cost comparison report ensures the most cost-effective service provider is being used.
The user-friendly front-end means that functional heads within organisations can have telephone statistics delivered directly to their desktop to take ownership of telephony costs, employee productivity and network efficiency. This is a key requirement with many organisations and often sees a return on investment in less than six months.
Stanger added, “The Proteus call management solution from CTI Group has been very beneficial in ensuring that the Trust understands and controls its telecoms expenditure. With hundreds of departments within GSST, and the various third party organisations that are also located within the hospitals, we are able to ensure that each department or customer is invoiced both quickly and accurately. The recent upgrade has provided us with an easy to use yet robust solution that not only allows us to monitor our costs, but also provides a monitoring and training tool to help ensure that we are providing the public with the best possible service.”