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Nortel, Bell Canada Help Santa Cabrini Hospital Raise Quality, Lower Cost of Care

Posted on Tue, June 17, 2008 at 1:15 pm

MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwire - June 12, 2008) - Already known for its leadership in both emergency and long-term care, Montreal's Santa Cabrini Hospital has partnered with Nortel(1) (TSX:NT)(NYSE:NT) and Bell Canada for a pioneering approach to raising the quality of patient care while lowering the cost.

As Santa Cabrini's primary solutions integrator, Bell is deploying a Nortel Unified Communications Solution expected to be the first in the healthcare industry to provide wireless voice, data and patient monitoring services hospital-wide over one common, 'clinical-grade' network.

"We wanted one communications solution from one network to avoid duplicate costs, yet resilient enough to depend on when lives literally hang in the balance," said Angelo Bodo, manager, Information Systems and Telecommunications, Santa Cabrini Hospital. "With Bell and Nortel as our technology partners, we have achieved this goal and positioned ourselves for future growth."

Nortel's Unified Communications Solution will help Santa Cabrini improve quality of care by providing instant access to vital signs, imaging and other critical patient information regardless of location. The network will support electrocardiogram(2) monitors and other clinical devices as well as fixed and mobile IP phones and computers, making patient care more cost-effective by eliminating the need for separate, dedicated communications networks.

"The network is no longer just a communications tool for today's hospital," said Dietmar Wendt, president, Global Services, Nortel. "It is at the core of healthcare delivery and needs to perform like the critical part of the system it has become."

"With Bell and Santa Cabrini, we're demonstrating how our healthcare technology solutions can help hospitals be more efficient and cost-effective, allowing them to remain focused on providing excellent patient care rather than dedicating valuable resources to managing multiple, complex networks," Wendt said.

Santa Cabrini also expects to increase productivity by allowing staff to network their own personal devices.

"Once you've put technology in people's hands, you can't separate them from it," Bodo said. "Many of our doctors want to use their own laptops, PDAs and BlackBerry(1) smartphones to access clinical applications from the patient's bedside. Now we've got the infrastructure to do that."

Also renowned for its onsite cancer research centre, Santa Cabrini Hospital does its utmost to provide the highest-quality patient care by incorporating advanced technology solutions to improve employee productivity and increase overall efficiency.

"It is important for healthcare providers to save critical time and improve productivity through innovative healthcare solutions to better serve their patients in an increasingly demanding environment," said Barry Burton, vice president, Vertical Markets Healthcare, Bell Canada. "As the system integrator, Bell analyzed Santa Cabrini's entire IT infrastructure and designed, implemented and managed Nortel's wireless voice and data network, incorporating voice over IP and unified messaging. The success of this deployment has prompted Santa Cabrini to proceed with a hospital-wide rollout."

The Nortel Unified Communications Solution for Santa Cabrini will include Nortel Communication Server 1000 for traditional voice and VoIP, Nortel CallPilot(1) Unified Messaging, Nortel WLAN 2300 Series, Nortel WLAN IP Telephony Manager 2245, and Nortel Ethernet Routing Switches. Santa Cabrini will also use Nortel wired and wireless IP phones.

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