ADRS to improve consumer care by using Starbak's enterprise video platform

Starbak (http://www.starbak.com/), the leading provider of enterprise video portals and integrated networks for the Education, Corporate, Healthcare and Government markets, today announced that Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services (ADRS) is using its award-winning enterprise video platform (http://www.starbak.com/solutions/Starbak_V3_Video_Portal_and_Integrated_Network/solutions.aspx) to improve consumer care by providing its geographically dispersed rehabilitation professionals with access to targeted and timely on-demand skills training videos. ADRS is also leveraging Starbak to deliver frequent, video-based public announcements and executive addresses and has experienced a significant reduction in inter-office travel expenses since deploying the system. ADRS is headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama, and employs 800 rehabilitation professionals covering all of Alabama's 67 counties.

"ADRS's employees now have instant access to a rich library of discipline-specific training and departmental videos and agency information," said Buck Jordan, IT systems specialist for ADRS. "The Starbak system has enabled us to expedite and simplify the training process, ultimately improving the quality of care that we deliver to our consumers."

The Starbak video portal is used regularly by every ADRS employee across its four major programs: Alabama's Early Intervention System (AEIS); Children's Rehabilitation Service (CRS); Vocational Rehabilitation Service (VRS) and State of Alabama Independent Living / Homebound Service (SAIL).

"All of our rehabilitation programs are staffed by professionals with education in their specific field or discipline, many with master's degrees," said Jane Elizabeth Burdeshaw, Human Resource Development Director for ADRS. "Because healthcare techniques and processes are evolving so rapidly, our staff members need a streamlined method for continuing education. Starbak provides our staff with instant access to timely video training content wherever and whenever they choose, allowing them to make more efficient use of their time and come to work better informed."

The Starbak system consists of distributed delivery nodes and local streaming servers that reside on ADRS's private network. Starbak's solution allows video files and streams to be served locally to viewers over high-bandwidth corporate LANs, preserving scarce and valuable WAN bandwidth -- an important capability for ADRS.

As Jordan explains, "Alabama Rehab runs a T1 line to most of its offices, which would become saturated very quickly if a large concentration of our 800 employees chose to access content from our video library or view a public announcement at the same time. With Starbak's unique distributed model, all video runs on each individual local network as opposed to across our WAN, guaranteeing viewers a high-quality, TV-like viewing experience -- and we don't need to worry about our network crashing."

Starbak's innovative video portal and HD digital signage (http://www.starbak.com/solutions/Digital_Signage/digital-signage.aspx) solutions are currently used by such leading national and global organizations as Government of India, MetLife, Auburn University (http://www.starbak.com/i/uploaded/155_STA_AuburnCaseStudy_022608_874371.pdf), Cleveland Clinic, Lockheed Martin, and Dow Chemical Company (http://www.starbak.com/i/uploaded/137_STA_DowCaseStudy_493756.pdf) to deliver unique enterprise video capabilities including video on demand (VoD), live event streaming, video conference recording and streaming, and HD digital signage.