NHS Human Services Connects More Than 700 Mental Health Clinics With SIP Trunks From Comcast Business

LAFAYETTE HILL, Pa., Feb. 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Comcast Business today announced that NHS Human Services, a nonprofit provider of behavioral health services with more than 700 facilities across the United States, is using Comcast Business SIP Trunks to enhance internal communications for Help Desk employees supporting more than 10,000 employees throughout Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Louisiana. With this next generation of IP voice connectivity, NHS will have access to improved functionality while still being able to use its existing PBX equipment.

NHS Human Services, through its subsidiaries, is one of the nation's leading non-profit providers of community-based human services. With nationally recognized programs in multiple states, NHS offers a full range of integrated services to children and adults. The organization has grown through a series of mergers in recent years and quickly recognized the need to employ a consistent and cost-effective way to connect its existing and future locations via an end-to-end solution that could support both an increasing number of workers and a growing number of incoming patient calls across a diverse geographic footprint.

"We determined that the most pressing need came from our centralized Help Desk department, which receives between 7,500-8,000 calls each month on issues ranging from simple technical support to more pressing equipment issues," said Sean McCloat, corporate director of IT services. "Comcast quickly integrated its SIP technology with our existing PBX equipment to provide the Help Desk staff in our IT operations center with four times the number of phone lines and the ability to cost-effectively add capacity when needed – proving that if SIP could reliably meet the high call volume of our Help Desk, we could expand its use to the patient-facing side of our organization," continued Matt Zabolotny, vice president of information technoloy at NHS Human Services.   

NHS is now taking advantage of 36 Comcast Business SIP Trunks, which has allowed its Help Desk technicians to access the organization's Virtual Private Network (VPN) from their homes and handle troubleshooting issues as though they were in the office – a feature that was not previously available with its prior system. The healthcare facility also plans to expand to more voice services in the near future, as well as upgrade its existing Comcast Business Internet connections to Comcast Business Ethernet to accommodate the additional growth expected over the next few months.

NHS Chairman and CEO, Senator M. Joseph Rocks, states, "NHS's commitment and focus on building strategic partnerships, such as with Comcast, allows us to leverage technological solutions that help increase employee satisfaction, which ultimately increases the quality of services provided to our consumers."   

"Healthcare organizations like NHS depend on voice services to troubleshoot technical issues and share clinical and administrative information, which means they need a communications partner that can provide reliable, easily scalable services to meet their needs," said Kevin Conmy, vice president for Comcast Business, Freedom Region. "As part of Comcast's comprehensive IP voice portfolio, SIP Trunks offer an economical, end-to-end solution that leverages our advanced nationwide IP network to provide comprehensive voice features with business continuity while also allowing our customers to maximize their investment in their existing phone systems."

Comcast's next-generation IP voice portfolio includes everything from individual voice lines to PRI and SIP trunks as well as Business VoiceEdge™, a hosted PBX with innovative unified communications and mobile features. A major provider of IP voice services, Comcast Business earned the #1 position as the 2013 North America Business VoIP Service Provider for the second consecutive year according to Infonetics and received three Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) Carrier Ethernet Awards, including the prestigious Service Provider of the Year for North America.

About Comcast Business
Comcast Business, a unit of Comcast Cable, provides advanced communication solutions to help organizations of all sizes meet their business objectives. Through a next-generation network that is backed by 24/7 technical support, Comcast delivers Business Internet, Ethernet, TV and a full portfolio of Voice services for cost-effective, simplified communications management.

For more information, call 866-429-3085.

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About Comcast Cable
Comcast Cable is the nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone provider to businesses and residential customers. Comcast has invested in technology to build an advanced network that delivers among the fastest broadband speeds, and brings customers personalized video, communications and home management offerings. Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) is a global media and technology company. Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.

SOURCE Comcast Business