Carolinas HealthCare System, a public healthcare system in the US, has selected a virtual contact centre from Nortel (NYSE:NT) (TSX:NT), a supplier of unified telecomms solutions, which directs each patient's call to a person, not a recording.

The healthcare system has deployed a Nortel VoIP solution over an existing, non-Nortel data network to support six hospitals and 50 doctors' offices and other medical facilities throughout the Carolinas Physicians Network. The solution includes a virtual contact centre with intelligent, skills-based routing to connect callers to the person most qualified to address their needs.

With Nortel's multimedia contact centre solution for healthcare, Carolinas HealthCare System handles over 640,000 callers a month. Calls are directed to one of more than 1,000 available home and office-based agents. According to the company, Carolinas Physicians Network has experienced a 31% improvement in patient satisfaction with telephone access since the Nortel VoIP system was implemented.

The solution for the healthcare system includes Nortel Communication Server 1000 IP PBXs, Nortel Contact Center 6.0, Nortel Survivable Remote Gateways, Nortel Branch Office Media Gateways and Nortel IP phones and softphones, the company said.

No financial details were disclosed.