More than 40 teams of hospital leadership and staff assisted in the design of patient care areas for Parkview Health’s new state-of-the-art Regional Medical Center. Their goal was to provide a home-like atmosphere for patients and families, and the best clinical advances available. In this case study, learn how Avaya Aura communications platform helped parkview health create the best patient care technology and human skills have to offer.

1. Indiana’s Parkview Health
Leverages smart technologies to deliver
advanced clinical care and a high-touch
environment for patients
Fort Wayne, Indiana – More than 40 teams of hospital
leadership and staff assisted in the design of patient care
areas for Parkview Health’s new state-of-the-art Regional
Medical Center. Their goal was to provide a home-like
atmosphere for patients and families, and the best clinical
advances available.
Smart is one of the key words often
used to describe the new facility, which
opened on March 17, 2012. There are
smart rooms, smart beds, and even
robotic couriers that deliver supplies.
An Avaya Aura®
communications platform
is a critical element that helps smart
technologies and human skills work
together for outstanding patient care.
Background
Paul Jones, Director of Technology
Services for Parkview Health, explains,
“The new facility is a 446-bed hospital
with over a million square feet of space,
which equates to about a quarter mile
from one end of the building to the
other. Planning for such a large facility
gave us the chance to consider
developing a new model for
communications that would take us into
the future. The most critical business
avaya.com | 1
Challenges
• Improve and accelerate
communications
among mobile
caregivers and other
staff members
• Deliver data from
monitoring devices
to mobile staff in
real‑time
• Unify a decentralized
voice network without
a complete forklift of
legacy switches
• Future-proof the
communications
solutions through the
use of SIP and other
advanced technologies
Value Created
• Accelerated work
flows, resulting in
operational efficiencies
and more time for
bedside care
• Integration with other
smart technologies for
real-time access to data
that supports patient
care and safety
• Cost savings on SIP
connectivity
• Ease of integration
with legacy switches
• Successful phased
deployment of new
technologies and ease
of extending new
applications
throughout the
enterprise

2. issue was to create a level of
communications among all our highly
mobile caregivers that is so quick and
efficient, it basically eliminates the
frustration and downtime involved in
trying to reach people and waiting for
things to happen.”
Mobile devices were key to their plan
because busy Parkview employees
are rarely tied to a specific location.
Jones believed that any medical
workflow solution would need to
incorporate smartphones, such as
iPhone or Android devices, and an
active directory so that appropriate
individuals on duty could be located
and contacted quickly.
Another important goal in the
Parkview communications plan was
to integrate data from monitoring
devices into the network and then
distribute alerts by either text or voice
to the appropriate people. Jones and
his team planned to link up medical
devices, such as drug pumps, heart
monitors, and even smart hospital
beds to the communications network,
providing medical staff access to
real‑time biometrics.
On an enterprise basis, the Parkview
team needed to develop its new PBX
infrastructure according to a phased
strategy, retaining current switches
for a period of time and gradually
extending the new technologies to all
of its many locations. They planned to
centralize call flows and maintain a
consistent dial plan across a
multivendor environment.
Solution
Parkview considered several vendors
of unified communications solutions
for the new medical center and a
smaller facility being built at
approximately the same time.
Potential vendors included Avaya,
Cisco, ShoreTel, and Microsoft. Jones’
overall assessment of many RFPs he
received was that the total cost of
ownership was too high, proprietary
technology would lock Parkview into
a walled-off solution, and/or the
solution didn’t incorporate mobile
devices in a meaningful way.
However, according to Jones, Avaya
provided all of the features that
Parkview wanted. “We chose Avaya
because the company strongly
supports our vision that advanced
mobile communications are key to
providing outstanding health care and
the best patient experience,” he
states. “Avaya also met our other top
criteria, which include a flexible and
scalable open standards platform and
the industry’s most meaningful
commitment to SIP [Session Initiation
Protocol], which we believe is the
leading technology going forward.”
Jones adds, “In developing plans for
the new Regional Medical Center
facility, we had an excellent
relationship with Avaya and our local
Avaya Connect partner. They really
listened to our ideas, and they were as
excited as we were about realizing our
vision for the new medical center.”
The solution included Avaya Aura®
Communication Manager, Avaya Aura®
Session Manager, Avaya Mobile
Activity Assistant, Avaya Conferencing
Standard Edition, and Avaya Aura®
Messaging. The Avaya mobility
solution is integrated with the medical
center’s Hill-Rom smart beds and
other monitoring devices. A Connexall
software solution serves as a
mediation layer that detects and
prioritizes actionable conditions and
notifies the hospital staff member
associated with the event.
In addition to mobile phones, Parkview
has purchased wired SIP phones—
Avaya 9608 IP Deskphones, 9601 IP
Deskphones, 9621 IP Deskphones, and
9641 IP Deskphones. With the first
rollout of the Avaya system, Parkview
expects that about 3000 SIP phones
will be registered at any given time.
When the rest of the main Parkview
campus and other Parkview facilities
are on the new network, Jones
believes the number of SIP endpoints
will soon reach about 4000.
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“Parkview chose Avaya
because the company
strongly supports our vision
that advanced mobile com-
munications are key to pro-
viding outstanding health
care and the best patient
experience. Avaya also met
our other top criteria, which
include a flexible and scal-
able open standards plat-
form and the industry’s
most meaningful commit-
ment to SIP [Session
Initiation Protocol], which
we believe is the leading
technology going forward.”
— Paul Jones
Director of Technology Services

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Cost savings, flexibility,
and scalability
The Avaya Aura®
communications
platform supports Parkview’s existing
switches and other vendors’ PBXs
with unified dial plans and centralized
voicemail. The transition has gone
smoothly, enabling the rollout of new
technologies on a phased basis.
“Budget-wise, it was valuable for us to
move into state-of-the-art technologies
without doing a complete overhaul of
our infrastructure right away,” Jones
comments. ” The Avaya Aura®
SIP
connectivity gives us the flexibility to tie
different solutions together and do
more than just ring and tone. We can
quickly move new applications into the
centralized Aura®
cloud for a unified
user experience across all of Parkview
Health’s facilities.”
Implementing SIP results in significant
cost savings. Compared with connecting
medical devices using specialized PRI
hardware, SIP is a less expensive option.
“The data shows that SIP saves us money
when connecting to third-party solu-
tions,” Jones emphasizes. “The older PRI
trunk cards were costly and required tele-
com technicians to do the hookup. SIP is
important to us going forward since it is
much more flexible in terms of connect-
ing medical equipment to the network.”
Improving collaboration,
accelerating work flows
Shortly after the opening of its Regional
Medical Center, Parkview deployed 200
iPhone devices loaded with Avaya’s
new Mobile Activity Assistant software.
A total of approximately 900 are being
distributed throughout the Medical
Center, covering most major
departments, including nursing, OR,
respiratory, medical imaging,
cardiology, ER, and ICU. Doctors,
executives, and other staff members
who already have iPhone devices are
able to install the software and continue
to use their phones just as before.
The Mobile Activity Assistant
functionality is referred to as Mobile
Manager at the medical center. It
helps staff members improve
collaboration and accelerate work
flow through secure “closed-loop”
HIPAA-compliant communications,
consolidating nurse call alerts, critical
result notifications, stat requests, and
co-worker messages onto one
application on a mobile device.
Users see co-workers’ availability via
presence and are able to contact them
via voice or text. Co-workers can
respond to text messages by touching
the message and launching a phone call.
Preconfigured text messages can be
used to speed responses. All messages
are logged for audit purposes.
“Avaya’s Mobile Activity Assistant has
solved our greatest communications
problem, which is the large number of
hops people typically had to make
trying reach someone or something
that’s needed,” Jones says. “Now with
Avaya’s Mobile Activity Assistant,
people can be reached much more
quickly, and actions can be prompted
almost instantaneously, either through
voice or the preconfigured text
messages. Nurses and physicians
connect without excessive phone tag;
services can be ordered at the touch
of a finger; critical biometrics and
other information are communicated
instantaneously. Nurses can even be
signaled and communicate with
patients through a device built into
the Hill-Rom smart bed.”
“The amount of time that’s saved can’t
be tracked precisely, but we believe
it’s very significant, and the benefit to
patient care is outstanding. Nurses
and other healthcare providers can
spend more time with the patient at
the bedside, which enhances the
patient experience tremendously.
While away from a patient, a nurse
can be alerted to potentially
dangerous situations, such as a
guardrail on a patient bed being
down. When the nurses told us that
they couldn’t imagine doing their jobs
without their Mobile Managers, we
knew we had been successful!”
Learn More
For more information, contact your
Avaya Account Manager or a member
of the Avaya Connect channel partner
program, or access other collaterals
by clicking on Resource Library at
www.avaya.com.
All statements were made by Paul Jones, Director of
Technology Services for Parkview Health.
“Budget-wise, it was valuable
for us to move into state-of-
the-art technologies without
doing a complete overhaul of
our infrastructure right away.
The Avaya Aura®
SIP
connectivity gives us the
flexibility to tie different
solutions together and do
more than just ring and tone.
We can quickly move new
applications into the
centralized Aura®
cloud for a
unified user experience
across all of Parkview
Health’s facilities.”
— Paul Jones
Director of Technology Services

4. © 2012 Avaya Inc. All Rights Reserved.
All trademarks identified by ®
, ™, or SM
are registered marks, trademarks, and service marks, respectively, of Avaya Inc.
05/12 • UC7070
ABOUT PARKVIEW HEALTH
Parkview Health is a not-for-profit, community-based health system that serves northeast
Indiana and northwest Ohio. Parkview is home to the region’s first Verified Level II Adult
and Pediatric Trauma Centers. Additional services include the Samaritan Flight Program,
Parkview Heart Institute, Parkview Ortho Hospital, a Certified Stroke Center, Women’s &
Children’s Hospital, Outpatient Center, and Comprehensive Cancer Center. As one of the
area’s largest employers with 7,500 full and part-time employees, Parkview’s mission is to
provide quality health services and improve the health of the communities it serves. More
information on Parkview Health can be found at www.parkview.com.
About Avaya
Avaya is a global
provider of business
collaboration and
communications
solutions, providing
unified communications,
contact centers,
networking and related
services to companies
of all sizes around
the world. For more
information please visit
www.avaya.com.
Systems and Applications
• Avaya Aura®
Communication
Manager
• Avaya Aura®
Session Manager
• Avaya Mobile Activity Assistant
• Avaya Conferencing Standard Edition
• Avaya Aura®
Messaging
• Avaya 9608 IP Deskphones, 9601 IP
Deskphones, 9621 IP Deskphones,
and 9641 IP Deskphones
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“With Avaya’s Mobile Activity Assistant people can be reached much
more quickly, and actions can be prompted almost instantaneously.
Nurses and physicians connect without excessive phone tag;
services can be ordered at the touch of a finger; critical biometrics
and other information are communicated instantaneously…
“The amount of time that’s saved can’t be tracked precisely,
but we believe it’s very significant, and the benefit to patient
care is outstanding.”
— Paul Jones
Director of Technology Services