Woodlands North Houston Heart Center

For Woodlands North Houston Heart Center (WNHHC), technology is a front-line ally in its campaign to prevent, diagnose, and cure heart disease. The clinic is virtually paperless. Wireless laptops have joined stethoscopes as standard equipment for doctors, and all test results, medical records, and reports are digital and can be transmitted instantly to the right people in WNHHC’s two facilities, or to consulting experts around the globe. WNHHC is one of the first practices in the country with a 3-D scanner — a Toshiba Aquilion 64 CFX — that eliminates the need for more invasive diagnostics.

“Voice communication is a mission-critical application for us, and the ShoreTel system’s ability to deliver ‘five-nines’ of reliability made it stand out from the competition.”
- John Henderson, Administrator, WNHHC.

On the heels of a move to a new facility, WNHHC wanted to replace its traditional and outgrown Toshiba DKT 424 phone system with an IP phone system with powerful unified communications tools built in. Any new communication infrastructure would have to keep pace with healthcare advances. WNHHC went looking for a single system that could span its main and branch facilities, accommodate increasing call volumes, streamline communications, and boost the efficiency and productivity of the professional and administrative staffs.

“ShoreTel was also the only vendor to provide a live demo. It captivated our doctors who were part of the briefing. In fact, they immediately remarked, ‘We have to have this.’ ”
- John Henderson, Administrator, WNHHC.

A presentation that included configuring a live ShoreTel system in minutes, and using it to place calls to the cell phone of a doctor in attendance, knocked the socks off the search committee. The migration began with PBX functions being entrusted to seven ShoreTel switches distributed across WNHHC's two main facilities: two ShoreTel 24s and three ShoreTel 12s at the new main clinic, and two ShoreTel 24s at the Woodlands branch location. Two ShoreTel T1 switches provide PSTN access to the headquarters, and point-to-point T1 lines connected by Cisco routers link the two sites in a high-speed WAN. Benefits include:

• The ShoreTel system can support virtually any type of handset. This means that in addition to ShoreTel IP Phones, roving staff can use off-the-shelf analog cordless phones that won’t interfere with WNHHC's wireless data network.
• The single phone system across multiple locations can be managed remotely from ShoreTel Director’s browser-based interface. Moves, adds, and changes that once required expensive service calls can be done immediately from virtually anywhere.
• On the first day with the new system, WNHHC's operator was able to handle 50 percent more calls than on the previous system, and with minimal  training.
• Presence information and calendar integration through ShoreTel Call Manager ensures that patients get connected quickly to the right healthcare professionals, wherever they happen to be.

“The ShoreTel solution, while being very easy to manage, provides advanced capabilities that make our staff more productive and allow us to improve the patient experience.”
- John Henderson, Administrator, WNHHC.