Microsoft Office SystemCustomer Solution Case Study

Government Healthcare Agency Implements Unified Communications Solution to Reduce Costs

OverviewCountry or Region: CanadaIndustry: Healthcare

Customer ProfileLocated in Toronto, Cancer Care Ontario is the cancer advisor for the government of Ontario, Canada, and it works to improve cancer services across the province.

Business SituationCancer Care Ontario needed a more robust conferencing and communication solution that would scale quickly as the agency continued to grow—but that would not increase costs significantly.

SolutionCancer Care Ontario deployed a Microsoft Unified Communications solution, which enabled it to provide robust conferencing, scalable VoIP telephony, and integrated messaging and desktop-sharing capabilities.

Benefits Reduced costs Improved efficiency Better help-desk support

“We rolled out Office Communications Server for voice capabilities and saved about CAN$50,000 because we did not have to purchase traditional handsets.”

Ken Sutcliffe, Director of Technology Services and Chief Technology Officer, Cancer Care Ontario

Cancer Care Ontario (CCO), a government agency in Ontario, Canada, uses electronic information and technology to support health professionals in improving the safety, quality, efficiency, accessibility, and accountability of cancer services. Employees relied on an aging phone system that offered little agility as the agency grew. They were also using various third-party desktop-sharing and conferencing tools to share data with hospitals, agencies, and clinics, causing support problems for the help desk and additional costs for the organization. The agency decided to implement a Microsoft Unified Communications solution and take advantage of several Microsoft products and technologies. After deploying the solution, CCO experienced reduced costs, improved efficiency of its employees and help desk, and a reliable emergency service for employees using voice over IP (VoIP)

SituationFormally launched and funded by the province of Ontario, Canada, in 1997, Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) directs and annually oversees close to CAN$700 million (U.S.$686 million) public healthcare dollars to hospitals and other cancer care providers for the delivery of high-quality, timely cancer services. The agency’s 700 employees are spread across three offices in downtown Toronto, and they work with cancer care professionals and organizations across Ontario to develop and implement quality improvements and standards.

CCO faced several challenges regarding communication in its environment, beginning with its telephony systems. The agency relied mainly on an analog private branch exchange (PBX) system. As the agency added new employees, it needed a more scalable system that would not require it to incur additional costs for new desk phones. For the few employees who were using voice over IP (VoIP) technology, CCO faced another problem: Those employees did not have accurate location representation for 911 services.

Another challenge CCO faced was providing a reliable enterprise conferencing solution across the organization. Different departments had implemented their own third-party solutions for audio, video, and web conferencing. Employees were also using third-party desktop-

sharing and instant messaging programs. Rolling out different third-party solutions not only made it difficult for CCO to control costs, but it also caused problems for the help desk, which had to support a growing number of applications.

CCO also had compliance concerns that limited its ability to share information with external organizations. Because the agency deals with sensitive information regarding medical records and the health of the population, it needed to ensure that employees could send all data securely. Because CCO could not certify that all the third-party applications used to share data were secure, employees had to restrict the amount of information they could share across the network.

As a government agency, a primary concern for CCO was managing costs, but it also needed to provide a more scalable collaboration and communication solution for its employees to ensure that they could share timely data with external partners and colleagues.

SolutionIn the summer of 2009, CCO began planning the deployment of a Microsoft Unified Communications solution based on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, and the Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 messaging and collaboration client. The Microsoft Unified

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Communications solution delivers complete communications—including messaging, voice, and web conferencing—through the hardware, software, and systems that people use every day. CCO tested the software for about two months. When the system was fully tested, the IT department provided access to a group of early adopters to evaluate whether they were able to provide the level and class of service that health professionals expected. After the early adopters had approved the solution, CCO deployed a pilot to 50 users. By March of 2010, CCO had made the Unified Communications solution available across the organization, with departments adopting the full-scale solution on a voluntary basis.

As part of the deployment, CCO engaged ThinkTel Communications to implement Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking, which uses SIP and Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) to pass network traffic from Office Communications Server directly to a network service provider over an IP connection. Thinktel’s SIP Trunking service has been independently qualified to meet the requirements of the Microsoft Unified Communications Open Interoperability Program (UC OIP) to work with Office Communications Server 2007 R2. With SIP trunking, CCO avoided the installation of an additional telephony gateway. It also avoided the installation of additional T1 connections that would have been

required to provide more bandwidth for running large audio and video conferencing sessions using Office Communications Server 2007. With SIP trunking from Thinktel, CCO plans to provide employees using VoIP as their primary telephony service with location-aware 911 services, because VoIP 911 calls interface with the traditional telephony network that displays the current location of the emergency caller.

CCO also deployed Office Communications Server 2007 to provide instant messaging and presence, as well as audio, video, and web conferencing, across the organization. Although it is not immediately planning to replace its existing PBX system, 200 employees are already using Office Communications Server exclusively for voice communications, and as new employees join the agency, they are no longer issued traditional desk phones. “All new people who join the company are provisioned with Office Communications Server with full functionality,” explains Ken Sutcliffe, Director of Technology Services and Chief Technology Officer at Cancer Care Ontario.

The agency has enabled the Federation feature in Office Communications Server 2007 and Unified Messaging in Exchange Server 2007. With Federation, CCO employees can view presence information of colleagues at hospitals and clinics, and with

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“We had a one-hour web conference call with eight partners using Office Communications Server and saved CAN$130 just in that one hour.”Ken Sutcliffe, Director of Technology

Services and Chief Technology Officer, Cancer Care Ontario

technology partners, that also have Federation enabled. They can also initiate instant messaging and desktop-sharing. Using Exchange Server Unified Messaging, employees receive text versions of voice mail in their Office Outlook 2007 inboxes. CCO is also using the Response Group Service in Office Communications Server to configure workflows that route and queue incoming calls to the agency. Finally, the help desk plans to use the Group Chat feature so that technicians can readily discuss and resolve internal issues. Group Chat enables users to carry on topic-specific, multiparty instant messaging discussions that persist over time.

Employee training was critical for CCO to promote adoption of the Microsoft Unified Communications solution across the organization. Sutcliffe explains, “Training has been absolutely critical in promoting the adoption of Office Communications Server. Employees have commented that it looks pretty straightforward and easy to use, which often disguises how powerful and multifunctional the tool actually is.” To provide this information, CCO published additional resources on the company’s intranet.

CCO also provides guidance to external partners, whom it frequently engages for web conferences. “The first time we set up a conference with an external

partner, we encourage them to log on ahead of time to ensure that they can successfully connect,” says Sutcliffe. “This makes them feel more comfortable using the technology at the time of the actual meeting. We have received positive feedback about this from our employees who use the solution for external conferences.”

In 2010, CCO plans to upgrade the Unified Communications solution by deploying Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft Outlook 2010.

BenefitsBy implementing a Microsoft Unified Communications solution, CCO has been able to reduce or avoid costs for third-party applications and equipment, an important benefit for a cost-conscious government agency that must account for every dollar it spends. The agency has also improved employee efficiency, enabling better support and communication among teams. It also plans to ensure that employees have critical location-aware access to 911 services through the latest technology.

Reduced Costs With Office Communications Server 2007and the SIP trunking solution from ThinkTel in place, CCO has reduced or avoided costs across the organization in a number of ways. One of its largest cost savings resulted from implementing full Office Communications Server voice functionality. “We moved to a new

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“Outlook is a primary communication tool for us. Office Communications Server’s tight integration with Outlook and the ability to see people’s status has helped us adjust communication based on availability.”Ken Sutcliffe, Director of Technology

Services and Chief Technology

building last fall, and instead of provisioning a traditional phone system, we rolled out Office Communications Server for voice capabilities and saved about CAN$50,000 [U.S.$49,000] because we did not have to purchase traditional desk phones,” says Sutcliffe. CCO expects to experience additional cost savings because all new employees who join CCO will also use Office Communications Server voice capabilities.

CCO also reduced costs for its audio, video, and web conferencing services. With the on-demand burst capability of SIP trunking provided by ThinkTel, CCO can easily scale its available bandwidth up and down to match usage. It also reduced use of many of the third-party applications different groups were using to conduct conferences, thereby saving licensing and maintenance costs for multiple solutions. “We had a one-hour web conference call with eight partners using Office Communications Server and saved CAN$130 [U.S.$127] just in that one hour,” explains Sutcliffe. “Since then, we’ve held web conferences with as many as 77 concurrent participants. Had we continued to use third-party tools, it would have cost us a great deal more.”

With SIP trunking, CCO avoided additional costs to upgrade its telephony network to handle heavy usage for conference calls with 100-

plus participants. Without the solution from ThinkTel, CCO would have had to purchase an additional gateway and T1 installation equipment that cost thousands of dollars, and would have incurred additional maintenance costs.

Finally, Office Communications Server has helped CCO reduce travel costs, because employees can more reliably conduct instant messaging or conferencing sessions with healthcare partners.

Improved EfficiencyCCO believes that unified communications will make employees more efficient. Robust conferencing capabilities mean that employees do not have to travel as frequently, so now they can spend more time at their desks reviewing critical data and communicating with colleagues and partners. Moving forward, CCO will also be able to free up valuable IT resources, because they will not be required to maintain additional PBX equipment and gateways. With Office Communications Server and SIP trunking, they can design a more flexible, efficient network infrastructure.

Presence and instant messaging capabilities have also helped employees be more efficient at their jobs. “Outlook is a primary communication tool for us. Office Communications Server’s tight integration with Outlook and the ability to see people’s status has

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helped us adjust communication based on availability,” explains Sutcliffe. It has also reduced the number of e-mail messages people send, as conversations have moved to instant messaging, saving time.

Better Help-Desk SupportSutcliffe recognizes that Office Communications Server provides great advantages for the help desk: “They are using instant messaging for support calls.” Help-desk employees are also more available to solve problems because they spend less time learning and supporting third-party applications for different departments. Instead, they can support an interoperating solution across one environment for most employees. They can also open a quick desktop-sharing session to help fix a problem, instead of having to walk to the employee’s desk or use a third-party tool to perform remote troubleshooting.

Reliable Access to 911 ServiceWith implementation of location-aware 911 services, all employees who use VoIP as their primary telephony service will have the same access to 911 as all other employees. “ThinkTel’s SIP trunking will help us provide accurate 911 service for our employees,” says Sutcliffe.

By deploying a Microsoft Unified Communications solution, CCO has been able to provide more robust—and security-enhanced—communications and collaboration tools for its employees, while also reducing its costs and ensuring that its staff is efficient and well-supported.Microsoft Office SystemThe Microsoft Office system is the business world’s chosen environment for information work, providing the programs, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.

For more information about the Microsoft Office system, go to: www.microsoft.com/office

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about ThinkTel Communications products and services, call (866) 92THINK or visit the Web site at: www.thinktel.ca

For more information about Cancer Care Ontario products and services, call (416) 971-9800 or visit the Web site at: www.cancercare.on.ca

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published July 2010

Software and Services Microsoft Office

− Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2

− Microsoft Office Outlook 2007

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft Exchange Server

2007 Enterprise Edition