EsSalud, National Healthcare Network for Peru, Turns to snom for VoIP Phones

By Tracey E. Schelmetic, TMCnet Contributor

In 2007, the government of Peru initiated a sweeping overhaul of its healthcare system and its hospitals. At that time, it was decided that the country’s health care facilities would be switched from its existing TDM phone system to an all-IP network that would carry voice, data and video throughout health care facilities across the country.

EsSalud, the national healthcare network of Peru, required a system that would uphold the highest standards of interoperability, open standards and scalability. It sought to deploy an Asterisk (News - Alert)-based IP voice communications system across hundreds of health care locations throughout Peru.

After testing phones from GrandStream and Polycom (News - Alert) and finding they didn’t meet EsSalud’s needs, the group turned to Berlin, Germany-based VoIP phone provider snom for its phone needs. EsSalud found that snom provided by far the greatest level of interoperability – which the project demanded - at a lower price.

The large-scale installation was completed with the assistance of SUMTEC, a Peru-based systems integrator that specializes in VoIP deployment for telecommunications and contact center businesses, and is a Gold Distributor of snom phone equipment. SUMTEC embarked on a project to install 10,000 snom phones across 400 health care facility and hospital locations.

Though the majority of phones were snom 300 desktop models, some snom 370 models were also installed. (A test call was made between the President of Peru, Alan García Pérez, and the principal of SUMTEC, Jorge Lay Castro, on a snom 300 desktop phone at the completion of the project.) At EsSalud’s request, SUMTEC also installed snom’s SIP-based paging unit, the PA-1, in several locations as a public address system.

As a result of the overhaul, the health care facilities of Peru now enjoy a number of benefits: easy provisioning of new lines across branch locations, high-quality HD audio, interoperable fail-over from OCS to other environments in the case of network problems, and interoperability across all SIP-based products.

In addition to the communications improvements experienced by Peru’s health care network, EsSalud estimates that its choice of snom phones versus other providers has saved the government of Peru more than $1 million U.S. to date.

The organization continues to expand its use of snom phones, broadening the scope of the project and outfitting new buildings and clinics with snom technology.

Tracey Schelmetic is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Tracey's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Stefania Viscusi

(source: http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/voip-phones/articles/95934-essalud-national-healthcare-network-peru-turns-snom-voip.htm)

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