Helping a Legendary Children’s Hospital Put Telecom Savings to Work to Help Save Lives
Background
When entertainer Danny Thomas founded St. Jude Research Hospital for Children more than 50 years ago, he was—the story goes—fulfilling a promise he made to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes. As a young man casting about for his purpose in life, Thomas pledged to St. Jude that he would build a shrine in the saint’s name if St. Jude Thaddeus would point the young man in the right direction. When Danny Thomas’ career took off in the mid-1950s, so too did plans to build a unique children’s hospital in Memphis, TN.
The solution
Approximately $30,000 saved per year
Freedom to focus onbigpicture Cisco migration
Extra resources to dedicate to life saving work
The challenge
7,700 ports forAvaya5.2 system
2,136 modular messaging subscribers
Stuck inOEMcycle of dependency
Significant amount of money wasted
The story
When St. Jude Research Hospital for Children finally opened its doors in 1962, the survival rate for children battling cancer was 20 percent. The odds were even worse for children afflicted with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL): a mere 4 percent. Today, thanks in large measure to the research efforts being undertaken at the children’s hospital, the rate of survival for childhood cancer has soared to 80 percent; for ALL, the rate of survival stands at 94 percent.
Funded entirely by individual contributions, St. Jude is unique in another important way: Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food. The mission has expanded to include other life-threatening childhood diseases as well as cancer, and the work of the hospital remains the same as when Danny Thomas first declared that “no child should die in the dawn of life.”
While its mission is noble for sure, St. Jude knows well that this money shouldn’t be squandered. The last thing a hospital with work this important should have to worry about is wasting money on Avaya maintenance. Tragically, that’s exactly what happened. Stuck in an OEM cycle of dependence, St. Jude needed a way out if it was going to get those wasted dollars back.
The way out came with Continuant. Offering maintenance for an enterprise level Avaya 5.2 systems with 7,700 ports and 2,136 modular messaging subscribers, Continuant gave the hospital better support at a better price. So much better was this price, in fact, that St. Jude save $30,000 a year.
With time and money now freed up thanks to Continuant, St. Jude has the freedom it needs to focus on the bigger picture. $30,000 more dollars every year now go to groundbreaking medical research and lifesaving healthcare. On the side, it also leaves the hospital free to implement a new Cisco solution, something for which Continuant will once again be able to lend its services.
Communication and collaboration is at the core of your organization. With Continuant’s UC and AV solutions, you’re one step closer to better business outcomes. Discover how your technology stacks up with a 30-minute assessment today.
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