Caste Study: Northeast Occupational Exchange

Background
Northeast Occupational Exchange (NOE) is a fully licensed, comprehensive mental health and substance abuse treatment and rehabilitation facility with offices in Bangor, Newport, Lincoln and Portland. Founded in 1975, NOE exists to assist persons who are physically and mentally challenged (includes emotional/behavioral) and otherwise vocationally handicapped (includes pre-vocational) to maximize their independent living capability, afford opportunity, eliminate abuse and dependence on substances and enhance employability and economic independence.

NOE’s commitment to its consumers usually begins with a phone call. The organization prides itself on having a “no wait list” policy and is able to deliver quick access to services to consumers when they need them. Whether it’s a self-referring consumer, primary care doctor, hospital or school administrator, when someone calls NOE, they speak with a person immediately to determine the best course of action and scheduling for the consumer.

Network
To deliver on this promise of speedy response, NOE relies on Mid Maine Communications SiteLink IP network to manage all of its consumer calls, interoffice communications and data communications. Because the offices are tied together on single network, calls across the hall or across the state are easy to transfer and route. As a result, patient calls are handle faster and NOE no longer incurs long distance charges on calls from their Bangor to Portland office, for example. NOE estimates that they have saved $14,000 in line charges since switching to Mid Maine Communications IP network.

The advanced capabilities and manageability of the IP network also saves the agency’s IT staff both time and energy because problems and changes can be addressed from anywhere on the network. It is no longer necessary for someone to travel to a specific office to troubleshoot a problem on the network. From very modest beginnings, NOE has quickly built a very robust and scalable data and voice network infrastructure over the last few years to support its operations.

Future Plans
Building on the strength of Mid Maine Communications network, NOE has plans to further streamline its operations by creating centralized call centers to more effectively manage the large volume of calls they receive daily. A communications disaster recovery plan is also in development. Again, advanced call forwarding and routing features, supported by the IP network, makes this possible. NOE also plans to incorporate quality of service (QoS) capabilities now available from Mid Maine Communications to prioritize and better manage data and voice communications across the network.

“Mid-Maine gives us excellent customer service and our account manager Sheryl Colvin is constantly looking for ways to improve our network capabilities,” said Laura Hollis, HR and Finance Director for Northeast Occupational Exchange.

By working closely with NOE, Mid Maine Communications was able to create, deliver and maintain a network solution that not only supports the organization today, it will enable continued growth in the future.