Who in the Organization would use EXTENSION®?
Any person who uses a PC, makes a phone call, and communicates with various departments can benefit from EXTENSION®—Physicians, Nurses, clinical staff, Front Desk, Billing, and Coders. Since EXTENSION® is a workflow tool that allows you to customize data display and communication, you can utilize it in any department.

Why would they use EXTENSION®?
EXTENSION® would be used to automate many processes, send notifications to the right area, and reduce lag in communication and errors throughout the operation. There are many different scenarios where EXTENSION® would be a good fit, here are a few examples. Clinical staff would use EXTENSION® to view information on phones and other mobile devices. Your billing department could use it to view patient balance information as the patient is calling in. Use EXTENSION® to reduce costs, increase productivity, increase HIT adoption, and reduce errors.

How does it add value to Cisco Unified Communications?
EXTENSION® integrates with your voice network and all of the 7900 series phones such that your medical data can be securely accessed from the graphical interface of the phone during a call. It is customizable for each type of user, is secure, and quicker to access than the traditional workstation. You’ll get greater use out of your phones, along with the added convenience of mobility.

• Notifications – Schedule Changes, Lab Results, Refill Request, Patient Reminders, MS Outlook
• Clinical Mobility – Chart Updates, Diagnosis, Medications, Lab Results, Charge Entry
• Notifications – Send phone, email and text messages to different patients and clinicians, send HL7 messages to and from clinical applications, send appointment information to your exchange server

Does it replace my EMR, Practice Management or other Healthcare Information System?
EXTENSION® is not meant to be a replacement for your EMR, but rather as a system designed to make your medical data more ubiquitously available in a secure manner thus reducing costs, increasing productivity, increasing HIT adoption, and reducing error.

What Mobile Devices will it work with EXTENSION®?
EXTENSION® is completely vendor agnostic and will work with any device that supports a standard web browser.

How does the data display on my phone?
EXTENSION® has a page builder that creates customized user interfaces. When accessed from PDA or Cisco Phone, the pages will display within the size, styling and formatting constraints of the device.

What Medical Applications do I need and what do they work with?
You can integrate any or all of your medical applications with EXTENSION®—EMR, Practice Management, LIS, PACS and more. EXTENSION® integrates with any HL7 compatible application, and is compatible with all vendors of Medical Applications. provided the application supports the HL7 standard.

Does this replace Dictation/Transcription?
Since EXTENSION® acts as a database, EXTENSION® could potentially replace a dictation information system as it can record audio via a phone call and route HL7 messages to a destination system but it does not have a dedicated transcription interface. EXTENSION® can integrate with dictation products such as Dictaphone.

When is it available?
EXTENSION® is available for purchase and implementation now.

What about HIPAA compliance and other security issues?
EXTENSION® is secure, uses role based permissions and includes audit logging functionality. Your administrators can set certain data only which is available for use by authorized users; and EXTENSION® promotes secure and encrypted clinical messaging.

What is the cost?
The costs of EXTENSION® include licenses by concurrent user and per the datasource connection. There are annual recurring support and maintenance costs, as well as professional services that are charged at time and materials.

What Cisco Products are required?
For basic telephony access, any Unified communications implementation will suffice. The advanced phone integration capabilities make use of the Unified Application Environment. Any or all of the 7900 series Cisco phones are able to integrate and display EXTENSION® workflows.

What if I don’t have Cisco VoIP?
EXTENSION® can still be of significant value to you without an integrated telephony system. The EXTENSION® tools allow for data mobility on any web-enabled device, interfacing capabilities between systems, and integration with your Microsoft Exchange server.

Will it work with other VoIP systems?
EXTENSION® is built to work with SIP, a standard found on all VoIP telecommunications. Although we have built EXTENSION® to integrate with Cisco’s advanced phone features, we can still integrate with other systems to allow for basic notifications, interfacing and clinical mobility.

How long does it take to implement?
EXTENSION®, as an appliance or hosted solution takes very little time to install and configure. The integration with your medical applications takes 1-2 weeks. The assessment of workflows and creation of workflows and rules within EXTENSION® can vary depending on the level of customization required and can be as little as a few hours to a few weeks.

How is the appliance installed? Can we do it ourselves?
EXTENSION® is delivered to you in a 1 unit rack server. Your systems administrator can essentially plug it in, assign it an IP address and begin to start configuring EXTENSION® for end user use.

Does this replace my existing interface engine? How do I set it up? How long does it take?
EXTENSION® could replace your existing interface engine. You would set up the HL7 messages from your existing applications and use EXTENSION® as the one central communication hub for all of them. A process such as this would take much less time than the traditional 1:1 interfacing necessary between systems.

How much training is involved?
Standard administrative training for the product usually takes one full day, and can be completed remotely to reduce costs. Advanced Administrator training can take 1-3 days depending on the skill level of your technical administrator. End Users of this product, however, need very little training, as all they see is the clinical data on their Cisco phone, webpage, or their mobile device.

Where do I ask for help?
The EXTENSION® Support contract includes our unlimited help desk support. You may call 866-325-7000 to answer any questions or troubleshoot any questions you may have about EXTENSION®. A printed and electronic training manual is also provided. Training and professional services are always available.

Who would administer this if I don’t have an IT team?
triPRACTIX has professional services available that will help you set up and maintain EXTENSION®.

What does my network need to support this?
EXTENSION® requires a network connection to send and receive data from various endpoints. Remote staff using your voice network is able to access EXTENSION® on their Cisco phone. Users who are working from a remote location are able to access EXTENSION® from their web browser on their tablet, laptop or PDA provided the network supports such access using VPN, SSL-VPN or similar.

For a downloadable version of EXTENSION® FAQs, click Here