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Case Study
Distributed IP Enables 2-1-1 Services for the State of Texas The Situation… The State of Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) has oversight and administration responsibilities for designated Health and Human Services agencies and programs including the Texas Medicaid Program, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Medicaid waste, fraud, and abuse investigations. The Texas Information and Referral Network (TIRN) has been designated by the Texas Legislature as the Texas Health and Human Services Commission program responsible for the development, coordination, and implementation of a statewide information and referral network. Texas is one of a number of states using the 2-1-1 dialing code assigned by the Federal Communications Commission for access to community-based information and referral services. Callers can find help with housing assistance, maintaining utilities, food, finding counseling, hospice services and services for the aging, substance abuse programs, or dealing with physical or sexual abuse. In Texas, there was a need for a statewide deployment of 2-1-1 services allowing calls to be routed to one of a number of Area Information Centers (AICs) distributed throughout the State. Serving a population of 21,000,000 residents, information and referral specialists at the AICs assess caller needs and determine the best service providers to refer by using a comprehensive database of resources. This database is maintained at the local AIC level and synchronized at the state level to make the same information available to other AICs who may be called upon to help a 2-1-1 caller. While information and referral services were already being provided within the communities by non-profit agencies, the Texas Information and Referral Network team wanted to make it easier to access services by utilizing 2-1-1, improve the quality of service by certifying providers, and reduce telecommunications costs. In addition, the State wanted to be able to report on the 2-1-1 service at an enterprise level and to reconfigure the AICs quickly to deal with local or regional emergencies. The Approach… To implement Area Information Centers (AICs) in cities across Texas in a very short period of time, and without a large capital budget, the TIRN HHSC program required a vendor to provide a Managed Services solution to route the calls. The Managed Services required were the creation of a telecommunications system design, implementation, ongoing operation, maintenance, and support of the infrastructure for IP-based 2-1-1 services. The State of Texas, like most state governments, has a volume purchase arrangement for voice and data circuits. This arrangement, known as Tex-AN (Texas Area Network), provides the State with very favorable rates for data circuits. By building a “converged” voice and data network (utilizing VoIP technology for voice) for 2-1-1, the State would be able to create a virtual, consolidated call center that could be reconfigured easily to meet changing conditions, including the ability to respond to calls during emergencies or periods of high-alert status. eLoyalty was selected as the vendor to design, host, and support the ongoing operations of the IP-based call routing infrastructure for the Texas 2-1-1 solution. The solution design was based on IP Contact Center (IPCC) technology from Cisco Systems. Working with Cisco and the State TIRN team, eLoyalty designed and deployed a virtual call center, linking together the Area Information Centers. A “converged” IP network was designed and implemented for 2-1-1 call traffic to leverage the State’s existing IP Data Network. Traditionally, a 2-1-1 call would require an intercept of the 2-1-1 dial code at the local exchange carriers (LECs) and subsequent routing of this call to a hidden 800 number, resulting in 800 number charges or other toll charges.
In addition, enterprise-level reporting provides HHSC with visibility to AIC performance and thus assures that Federal and State funding is achieving the desired results. AIC level reporting provides each AIC manager with improved management metrics as well. The Results… In this Health and Human Services application, Information & Referral Services wouldn’t be effective if they didn’t leverage the community-based Area Information Centers that have a local presence and awareness of the community services available. Having that local presence in the community would have come at a price without the benefit of Distributed IP Contact Center technology. The benefits of economies of scale (consolidated telecom facilities, flatter management structure, better utilization of call center personnel, larger and more economical facilities) gained by consolidating call centers would not be available to organizations with these “local presence” requirements without the benefit that converged IP networking brings. This creates the compelling need to better leverage these distributed resources at lower operating costs, which is part of the promise of Distributed IP Contact Center technology. For the State of Texas, significant community and state government financial benefits will result now that the solution has been deployed. The social service providers are very happy with the ease of access that 2-1-1 enables. The benefits to the State include:
The AICs that operate 24x7 handle after-hours calls for the ones that don’t, and calls can be overflowed or redirected to other AICs in times of particularly high call volume. Because the calls stay within the State’s 2-1-1 network, telecommunication costs are fixed, predictable, and dramatically lower than if they had been sent over the Public Switched Telephone Network. With the first 14 of the AICs deployed, the system is working as designed and the economics have been confirmed. |
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