| This is what I did for a living in my last job and there is a lot of planning required to do it successfully. I can not give you an unbiased recommendation for PBX because all my experience is with Avaya. I can give some general ideas however.
Whoever you get the machine from make sure they have the knowledge and experience to do the entire job for you, not just install the PBX and then walk out the door leaving you to cut over.
What you will need to provide is a complete floorplan showing where every phone is located, what the number is on each phone, where every wiring closet is located, the jack numbers will be nice to know (otherwise each one will have to be identified manually by the installation team), the circuit IDs for every line coming into the hospital and where it terminates, there could be more but that is the minimum for a good cut. Be prepared to spend time discussing floor space, power requirements, and telephone features with the vendor.
The vendor should have several people at your site, one or more installing the PBX and one or more cruising through the hospital figuring a plan of attack for the actual cutover. There will be a person doing all the programming, you will talk to that person a lot.
Expect to have a service interruption when the cutover starts so plan for some phones to be in for emergency use, probably using some lines you already have. Coordinate this with your vendor. None of the hospitals I cut over could be done in the daytime always had to start in the evening, expect to still be working when the sun comes up the next day.
If special clearance is needed for certain areas get that arranged ahead of time, don't forget that operating rooms are sometimes considered special areas.
When selecting a system and vendor get them to give you some former customers phone numbers so you can call and find out how good a job they did. Select a vendor that has done larger jobs than yours, you don't want to get a vendor that has never done large jobs before.
Good luck! __________________
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Marty |