Johannesburg, 24 Jan 2006
When the Victory Junction Gang Camp, a year-round sanctuary for children with chronic medical conditions and serious illnesses, needed to provide reliable communications between its highly-mobile employees and medical staff, it turned to Avaya Internet Protocol (IP) telephony solutions to connect camp buildings and medical facilities serving children across a 72-acre campus.
Using Avaya`s solution, the camp - which is part of the Hole in the Wall Gang Camps spearheaded by actor Paul Newman - provides counsellors and parents with continuous, 24/7 access to Victory Junction`s on-site healthcare personnel that support campers year-round.
The Avaya solution includes a state-of-the-art converged IP network and mobility applications that help ensure information and conversations can be shared rapidly and in real-time, in accordance with the camp`s special needs. With this solution, a camper`s parent or primary care physician can more quickly reach a child`s attending physician at Victory Junction to inquire about a child`s condition, provide medication information or answer time-sensitive questions about a child`s illness. This type of intelligent, `right-time` communications helps the camp focus on providing an adventurous environment for children, while closely monitoring their health.
Victory Junction`s mobility capabilities are powered by Avaya Extension to Cellular, an IP application that transparently extends calls made to one`s desktop phone to their cellphone, along with key enterprise telephony functions. It is used by physicians, nurses, counsellors and other camp associates to gain one-number portability and remain reachable wherever they go, inside or out of the campus. This removes the issue of callers having to wait through numerous transfers just to reach a voice mailbox. Also, callers no longer get busy signals when a camper`s health is in question or if a loved one just wants to check in on them.
A driving force behind the Victory Junction Gang is founder Pattie Petty, who made state-of-the-art communications an essential part of her vision for the camp.
"Our goal is to give children who are ill an adventurous and life-changing experience, and having reliable, high quality communications is an essential part of our vision," said Petty. "Avaya really stepped up to the plate by providing us with the IP solutions and consultation services we need to keep communications operations running smoothly, and helping to ensure that counsellors, parents, children and doctors remain connected at all times."
In addition to serving the needs for greater mobility, the Avaya IP network gives the Victory Junction on-site medical staff confidence that communications will remain continuous when they need to request emergency medical systems or an ambulance. Engineered with advanced levels of availability and continuity, Avaya`s IP solution supports the camp`s communications across 32 buildings year-round for recreational and education activities, including the high summer season, when more than 1 200 children come to the camp.
Adds Wes Carper, IT director for the Victory Junction Gang Camp: "When we sought out a high-quality, low maintenance network solution to deliver a mission-critical communications infrastructure - one that crosses across our entire camp`s hills, swimming pools, facilities and cabins - Avaya was our top choice."
Victory Junction implementation details
The Victory Junction Gang is using Avaya Communication Manager running on Avaya S8500 Media Server to integrate telephony call processing, call control, modular messaging, contact centre functions, and to support both circuit-based and IP-based telephony. They now have 155 end points, 80 of which are IP telephones. Avaya provided consultation services to help design and install the converged network across the camp`s entire campus.
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