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MU Health Care

Impact

  • 100% smooth flights for 6,000+ phone lines at two hospitals
  • Improved partnership with MU Health Care’s chosen carrier
  • Successful deployment by a cohesive team, working towards a shared goal
  • Telecom transition completed on time and within budget

The biggest impact Convergent had for MU Health was modernizing our communication capabilities. MU Health had evolved and grown over a number of years…we needed to transform outdated and siloed communication technology to meet the expanding needs of our community’s premier health system.

Challenge

MU Health Care is an academic health system serving patients in Columbia and throughout mid-Missouri through University Hospital, clinics, and community-centric facilities. Updating the health system’s vast phone system to handle patient data volume was identified as a priority for this critical health resource.

In 2016 in partnership with University of Missouri, MU Health purchased a new VoIP system from Cisco. Although they attempted a self-installation, the team ran into both internal and carrier challenges. As they discovered, selecting a system was only the first step; MU Health needed a partner to manage the deployment of more than 6,000 phone lines between University Hospital and Women’s and Children’s Hospital, plus support its staff during the transition.

Convergent’s Solution

Convergent was chosen to handle staff augmentation, project assistance, and provide an on-site project manager to help with the deployment of the health system’s new VoIP system. Convergent also acted as a liaison between MU Health and CenturyLink to improve and maintain their partnership.

Convergent started with a critical basic – project management. Convergent convened and managed active status calls with the entire internal MU Health deployment team to track progress, identify bottlenecks, and ensure that milestones were happening on schedule. Implementation of project management software helped maintain the schedule, progress, and budget. 

Convergent then turned its focus on supporting the health system’s team with key aspects of the transition including overseeing every flight, onsite management for all flight cutovers (improved upon through Convergent-designed project templates), and managing on-site staff, which included both the MU Health team and additional support provided by Convergent.