Maryland Assisted Living Facility Benefits from IP Office Cloud

Golden Crest Assisted Living Leverages Existing Technology Investment Plus Gains Cloud Capabilities to Solve Multiple Challenges

Located in rural Carroll County, Maryland, Golden Crest Assisted Living is a family-owned and operated licensed assisted living facility. One of the things that sets Golden Crest apart from larger, corporate-run facilities is the small, home-like setting of its houses, which helps to insure personalized care. Its 70 employees serve residents across five houses, each with 16 rooms.

This dispersed model has proven successful for providing quality care to residents. The challenge has been connecting all of the five homes from a communications perspective. The communications infrastructure in the rural area where Golden Crest’s homes are located is sorely lacking.

“We’re out in the country, it’s not easy to get circuits out here,” explains Golden Crest CEO Bob Meekins. “We couldn’t get the bandwidth to support both voice and data.”

Already a long-time Avaya customer, Meekins worked with Avaya Hosting Partner, Data Voice eXchange, Inc. for a solution. They deployed a first-of-its-kind hybrid cloud service based on Avaya IP Office. The solution is saving Golden Crest money and has taken the strain off of its Internet.

The Best of Both Worlds

Golden Crest deployed the Powered by Avaya R2.0 using the Hybrid Cloud deployment option and it’s resulted in a high-quality, reliable communications solution.

“The Avaya phones are reliable and the quality is crystal clear. That’s imperative from a safety standpoint,” says Meekins. “When we need to make an emergency call or contact a resident’s family, we need to know the solution will work. Avaya gives us that.”

The company was able to save money by leveraging its existing IP Office infrastructure for the solution, but as Meekins explains, that was only one aspect of the cost savings.

“Right off the bat, I saved $700.00 per month because the Avaya hybrid solution eliminated my need for a second T1 line,” he says. “On top of that, we were able to repurpose the IP Office and build on it. Avaya has saved us a bundle.”

Golden Crest managers, nurses and HR staff are in almost constant communication among the houses. They started using Avaya WLAN point-to-point wireless between two houses that are on the same campus. It extends both voice and data to the second house, eliminating the need for another set of circuits and enabling immediate and seamless communication. In addition, the mobile twinning feature of the IP Office is helping Meekins and his wife and co-founder, Kimbra.

“I don’t have an office, my truck is my office. I am always traveling among the five homes,” he says. “And my wife has a home office and is on the road at all of the facilities every day. The IP Office mobile twinning is great, when someone calls one of us, the call rings directly to our cell phones.”

Trusted Partners

Meekins’ original decision to deploy Avaya IP Office was based on the company’s reputation. “I heard that Avaya is the top of the line as far as communications equipment, and I’ve been very happy with the deployment,” he says.

He’s also had a positive experience working with Data Voice eXchange. “Data Voice eXchange is a great company, they’ve always been on top of everything,” adds Meekins.

The Next Level

Golden Crest has experienced steady growth in recent years, and that has kept Meekins busy. Now that expansion efforts are complete, he hopes to start more fully leveraging the capabilities of the IP Office solution.

“Next on the agenda is really digging into all of the features of the phone system to help improve the efficiency of our entire staff,” concludes Meekins. “There’s so much our administrators can do with these phones.”