Chapter 7: Better Phones; Quality Sound

Visiting Nurse Association

The VNA of Boston is the second largest organization of its kind in the nation, with some 300 registered nurses on staff and more than 1000 other health-care professionals. It handles more than a million in-home visits a year.

"We receive almost 100 calls a day," says Carol O'Leary, the VNA's administrative services manager. "They're from physicians, nurses, hospital discharge planners, a range of social-service agencies and even family members." Calls come into a single central number, she explains, and routing them correctly is a major requirement.

"Calls need to be routed logically to the right one of our four offices throughout the city, and to the right specialty group, such as the special HIV nurses, if necessary." A Teloquent Distributed Call Center responds to the need by linking agents at the four offices into a single virtual office through the ISDN D channel.

"The system lets all of our locations act like one office," says O'Leary, "and also gives us great statistics for planning and scheduling."