Streamlines Process of Discharging Patients to other Healthcare Facilities

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS -- (Marketwire) -- 04/07/09 -- Nortel(1) (TSX: NT)(OTCBB: NRTLQ) today announced a significant upgrade to its Patient Discharge Solution for healthcare providers. The new feature - Patient Referral and Placement - allows hospitals to streamline the process of discharging a patient to another care facility such as a rehabilitation hospital, nursing home or hospice, and to obtain medical equipment for the patient. This addition to Nortel's Patient Discharge Solution can help hospitals realize better patient flow management, reduced bed turn over time and increase the number of patients they can treat.

"Our Healthcare Solutions use powerful unified communications technologies to accelerate and automate the clinical processes," said Sanjeev Gupta, general manager, Healthcare Solutions, Nortel. "The results are solutions that are specifically designed to work within the clinical environment to enhance business results through faster patient discharge, better patient care, improved clinician/equipment productivity and increased patient/staff satisfaction."

In one customer example, Orlando Health, a Nortel solution yielded savings of up to four hours per patient in discharge and bed turn over time. The solution employs computer-integrated telephony and IVR technology to automate the entire discharge process - from physician consent, to prescriptions, to housekeeping and the wheelchair ride to the front door. Nortel projects that by using the Patient Discharge Solution, one 1,700 bed hospital can achieve a better than $10 million revenue increase in the first full year of implementation.

"We have worked closely with Nortel to develop a solution that truly delivers tangible benefits to our business," said Rick Schooler, vice president and chief information officer, Orlando Health. "The Patient Discharge Solution enables prompt approvals from physicians regarding a patient's discharge status, which relieves nurses from playing phone tag. It also helps us to promptly initiate multiple departmental activities that enable a more timely discharge, thus helping to reduce costs at the end of the patient stay and improve bed utilization.