One month ago Rural Health Medical Program Inc. which serves Perry, Dallas, Wilcox, Marengo and Monroe Counties, could not do simple things in their offices like transfer phone calls or check caller I.D.

Today after their partnership with Blue Ocean Technologies of Birmingham, their existing phone system and communications capabilities have improved between their five satellite locations.

“We installed an IP phone system a few years ago, but there were some issues with the quality of the service,” Robert Jackson of the Rural Health Medical Program said. “The service was in and out, the call quality was bad, and we had no capacity to transfer or forward calls.”

Now all phones are connected, which is an important resource to those serving the black belt medically. Rural Health Medical Program is a private, non-profit federally qualified healthcare corporation, which provides comprehensive medical and dental services to residents of the Black Belt.

Blue Ocean evaluated the Rural Health Medical Program’s existing network and made recommendations to improve the quality of their service.

“The latest VOIP technology gives businesses the means to connect remote offices as easily as if they are across the hall,” Blue Ocean CEO Bill Pautler said in a press release. “The Rural Health Medical Program’s new system will allow them to quickly handle calls and route them throughout their network–while saving money on their monthly bill.”

A spokesman for Blue Ocean, John Bagby, said it is features like caller I.D. that may seem small, but can save a small business up to one hour of work.

“Rural Health Medical was having trouble with things like connectivity and their call quality was very poor,” Bagby said. “In the medical world you need to deal with people as quickly as possible. So its little things like caller I.D. and getting everyone separate extensions [in the office] that can save a business about an hour a day and aid in productivity.”