Healthcare : Natural Touch and Acapela handle calls for the Sud Francilien Hospital Center.

The Sud Francilien Hospital Centre is a French public healthcare organisation, that runs some 27 sites, with over 1000 beds and 3500 employees, and covers the needs of a population of about 600,000 persons. The Center has chosen to turn to speech technologies to enhance its phone service, making it more efficient, user-friendly and available 24/7. The project was entrusted to Natural Touch, a specialist in the research, development and deployment of telecom-based products and services, who deployed a specifically health sector-oriented solution, Dialoca Santé, voice-enabled by Acapela.

Dialoca Santé enables an easy management of the Hospital's phone switchboard system, from a single phone number ; the caller's needs are identified, the call is routed to the service or person required, information can be broadcasted, requests for technical maintenance are processed, and emergency calls can be sent to on-call personnel.

At any time, the hospital staff and the general public can access any department, service or person by simply saying the name. Acapela's speech synthesis is used to confirm the requested name and ensure the transfer. The TTS also enables information broadcasting (opening hours, administrative procedures, etc.) and programmed announcements. Dialoca Santé also manages the technical maintenance requests, ensuring follow-up and traceability. With a single phone call, the whole internal procedures system can be optimized.

All the vocal prompts required by the Dialoca Santé system are generated with Acapela TTS. "The quality of Acapela's speech synthesis now allows us to create high quality stand-alone vocal applications that are seamless for the users who appreciate the up-to-date and precise response to their calls." says Thierry Brizzi, CEO of Natural Touch.

The service, deployed in June, is being tested internally. The feedback is already very positive and the service should soon be available to the general public.