Aged care telephony is unlike most other environments. Residents need a phone service that feels personal and simple. Operators need to keep costs as low as possible. And every facility carries a duty of care – including knowing immediately when something has gone wrong.
Running shared telephony infrastructure across multiple residences makes financial sense. But it creates a real challenge: how do you accurately bill each resident for only the calls they made? And what happens when a resident dials emergency services in the middle of the night?
The Problem
Three demands at once. Simplicity for residents. Low cost for operators. And a duty of care that cannot be left to chance.
Shared infrastructure helped keep costs down, but without accurate call tracking, billing became guesswork. And with no alert system in place, management had no way of knowing when emergency services had been called from a residence until someone told them – which was often too late.
What Changed
Accurate billing per resident meant that even across shared telephony infrastructure, every resident was charged only for the calls they personally made. Call accounting reports tracked which calls came from which extension, giving the provider real data to bill against. No estimating. No averaging. Just accurate, fair billing based on actual call activity.
Emergency services alerts meant that the moment any resident dialled emergency services from any residence, management was notified straight away. No waiting. No relying on someone to pass the information along. The alert went out automatically as soon as the call was made.
Extension and group reports gave administration staff visibility into call patterns and busy periods at each facility. Staffing decisions could now be made based on when residents and families actually called – not assumptions.
Scheduled reports were delivered automatically by email in PDF, CSV, or XLSX format on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule. Administration staff received their reports without needing to log in to anything.
Security roles ensured each user only saw data for their own facility. Facility managers saw their residence. Group operations saw the full network.
The Outcome
Residents have a simple, flexible phone service. Their bills reflect only the calls they made. The operator runs shared infrastructure without passing unfair costs to anyone.
When emergency services are dialled from any residence, management knows about it immediately. On the operational side, call patterns across every facility are now visible, and staffing decisions are backed by real data instead of guesswork.
About Callation
Callation is a cloud-based platform for call reporting, accounting, and analytics. It works across a wide range of phone system vendors and platforms. Reports are built for accuracy and simplicity, the platform is cloud hosted with no servers to manage, and data is retained for five years as standard with options to extend.
