8x8's Jitsi as a Service Enables Kalix to Grow Its Healthcare Practice Management Platform

The challenge

The Kalix platform includes a full-featured client web portal that provides access to the company’s entire portfolio of services and also allows practitioners to communicate with their clients through chat or video conferencing.

Initially, the Kalix technical team used Jitsi open-source video conferencing software to power client communications.

“The code was very powerful and offered many good features,” says Felix Jorkowski, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Kalix. “However, we were hosting it ourselves and it was taking too much developer time to tune and maintain.”

For the following two years, Kalix used an alternate solution but was unable to add additional features and it took too much developer time to tune and maintain.

“Eventually, we concluded that our previous provider was no longer meeting our growing needs and could not provide the technical support we required,” says Jorkowski.

“While it was functional, we had reached the extent of its capabilities and we would have been unable to add additional features such as rich analytics moving forward.”

The solution

After assessing a range of alternatives, Kalix decided to deploy a new video conferencing solution from 8×8 based on the Jitsi code.

“We were already familiar with Jitsi and loved using it. Being open source, our developers were able to constantly enhance our product offering with new and exciting features. But now that it was being run by 8×8 as a hosted service, Jitsi was even more appealing to us at this stage in our growth,” says Jorkowski.

Once the decision was made, it took only five weeks to deploy and integrate Jitsi as a Service (JaaS) into the Kalix web portal.

“Integration was very straightforward, and the service came with advanced capabilities, such as call recording and analytics out of the box. Built on WebRTC, we can now support all major browsers so users can access directly in their browser. This makes it secure and accessible.”

Jorkowski says that HIPAA compliance was also a critical factor in choosing JaaS as the majority of Kalix customers are based in the United States.

“We no longer have to worry about maintaining servers or managing the service, this alone saves us around 30 developer hours and $1,840 in overhead costs per month.”

Felix Jorkowski, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Kalix

The result

With JaaS in place and fully operational, Kalix was quickly enjoying significant benefits.

“The analytics capabilities offered by JaaS are really helpful,” says Jorkowski. “If someone has a problem, we can readily see what is causing it, troubleshoot and offer assistance to have it quickly resolved.

These analytics capabilities enable Kalix to measure churn rates as well as the percentage of favourable calls, and view internet and browser usage for each person.

Jorkowski says that having a hosted video conferencing service is another major benefit for the company.

“We no longer have to worry about maintaining servers or managing the service,” he says. “This alone saves us around 30 developer hours and $1,840 in overheads costs per month.

JaaS also gives Kalix the option of adding additional features in the future, starting with call recording and even potentially transcription which may be able to support insurance claims in the future.

“Overall, Jitsi as a Service allows us to deliver a smooth user interface and a great experience, both for our clinician customers and their patients,” says Jorkowski. This includes the option for blurred backgrounds on video calls and a PSTN dial-in. Indeed, medical practitioners say they’re now able to provide an even more optimal and timely experience at the patient’s moment of need. I’m confident it will meet our requirements for many years to come.”