The BMC-designed systems combine interactive voice response (IVR) and voicerecognition with sophisticated scripting. The systems conduct interviewswith patients to determine their condition, and then provide them withinformation, advice and coaching. The systems also alert a healthcareprofessional if the patient must be seen immediately or of their careregimen must be changed. Importantly, the systems enable healthcareprofessionals to monitor patients between office visits, when theirconditions can vary widely.

"Blood sugar levels don't wait for office visits to rise and fall. If apatient is experiencing side effects from a medication, that won't wait foran appointment either," said Robert Friedman, a physician and head of theBMC team developing the voice solutions. "The current way we take care ofpatients with scheduled office visits, often more than four months apart,assumes that patients will know when to contact their physicians. Thehealthcare system needs to address the nature of chronic illness byreaching out to patients between appointments, yet within the realities ofcost and time. Envox 7 gives us the flexibility to create detailed yeteasily navigated systems that enable physicians to monitor patients moreeffectively between office visits and help patients take a more active rolein monitoring their own care."

The BMC team recently launched its first system, which screens people atrisk of substance abuse problems, for the Massachusetts Department ofHealth. Funded by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health ServicesAdministration (SAMHSA), BMC's effort is one of eight such projects takingplace nationally. Their system however is the only one that employs cuttingedge speech recognition technology for over-the-phone interaction. Hostedat BMC, the screening system takes preliminary data from medical practices,and uses it to conduct phone-based screenings of primary care patients forundiagnosed substance abuse problems. It compiles the screening results inreports for the clinicians. The system enables healthcare professionals toscreen hundreds of English or Spanish-speaking patients per day.

"Thousands of people are pre-screened every week, and as many as 20 percentof these screenings can be positive," said Amy Rubin, a clinicalpsychologist and member of the BMC development team. "It would beprohibitively expensive for healthcare providers to screen these patientsthemselves, but early detection is critical for people in the beginningphases of addiction. With the voice-activated system, we can get to themright away."

Envox's open, standards-based platform includes application development andmanagement components that significantly reduce the time, cost andcomplexity of deploying voice and IP communications solutions. Envox 7combines comprehensive support for traditional voice communication with theindustry's most complete support for IP communication, including IPtelephony, video messaging, SMS, and e-mail. By melding these capabilities,Envox 7 offers a unique multi-modal platform that enables organizations todeploy all of their communication solutions on a single, cost-effectiveplatform.

"Envox Worldwide's products are usually associated with customer serviceimprovements in a variety of industries including healthcare, financialservices, travel and utilities, but Boston Medical Center is showing howeffective and economical they can be in healthcare delivery," said LeoCasey, president and CEO of Envox Worldwide. "Dr. Friedman's team hasconceptualized a whole new model for assisting health care professionalswho treat chronic conditions. Envox is looking forward to helping themexpand healthcare's boundaries and improve patient care."

For more information about Envox Worldwide, please visit www.envox.com.

About Envox Worldwide

Envox Worldwide is a leading global provider of IP-based voice self-serviceand contact center solutions. The company's standards-based softwaresolutions dramatically reduce customer service costs, optimize contactcenter performance and improve customer satisfaction. More than 1.25million ports of Envox's hosted and premise-based IVR solutions have beendeployed globally and over one million contact center agents benefit fromthe intelligent routing, screen pop and call monitoring functionalityprovided by Envox's award-winning CTI software. Envox's development toolsand software platforms are also used to streamline enterprise-widecommunications through unified communications solutions and to generate newrevenue streams for service providers through multimedia carriercommunications services. For more information, visit www.envox.com.

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