StormWood Vertical Market: Health Care
The healthcare industry is undergoing dramatic changes worldwide. With increasing regulation and stricter cost containment policies, healthcare and insurance companies are being pushed to streamline and modernize business process, manage information overload and introduce tighter controls for patient privacy, while at the same time, increasing revenue.
Healthcare institutions require reliable communications around the clock. A ShoreTel phone system provides 99.999% reliability with no single point of failure, as well as the capability to keep staff in touch whether they are onsite, in a remote location, or on the move.
Healthcare organizations everywhere are relying on IP PBX systems to reduce costs, improve organizational efficiency, and develop new, innovative applications that enhance productivity. The healthcare system is under great pressure to improve patient care while keeping costs under control. Deploying a ShoreTel IP PBX system helps to accomplish this goal. New telephone capabilities, such as Microsoft Outlook integration, provide opportunities to increase the availability, mobility and flexibility of voice communications.
Healthcare is delivered best when patients and physicians are face-to-face. Sharing medical history, symptoms and information helps care-providers determine the best course of action. As people become more distributed across geographic boundaries, access to specialized care can be compromised. Even in the world’s metropolitan areas, patients need timely access to doctors trained to treat a specific disease or injury.
Healthcare is clearly the most demanding application for videoconferencing, and no solution is as well-suited as LifeSize High Definition (HD) Videoconferencing. With LifeSize, doctors are able to see and hear as clearly as if they are there in person. Look inside an ear canal, view a radiology film, and see vivid, true colors to determine a patient’s wellbeing. With HD, clinicians have full confidence that they can provide the care their patients deserve.
HD videoconferencing enables virtually every specialty to examine patients using Telemedicine with confidence. From oncology and neonatal care to telepsychiatry and speech therapy, the applications for Telemedicine in HD are boundless. LifeSize HD Telemedicine promotes:
- Increased Patient Reach – Provide care to patients in hard to reach places, including isolated areas, prisons, and large metropolitan areas that have a shortage of specialists or need for additional consultations.
- Timely Access – In healthcare, timing is critical. Emergency care can be provided in real-time and on demand, without transferring patients, when time is of the essence.
- Reduced Costs and Burden – Provide quality care more cost-effectively by reducing costly transfers and travel and lowering the burden on patients and families.
With patient safety as the top priority, healthcare providers are constantly being asked to increase the quality and availability of patient care – while reducing staff and cutting costs. Healthcare providers are further challenged with more devices being networked, more data being stored and shared, technological advances, new applications, increased connectivity through portals, and constant changes in caregiver personnel and the patient population.
To meet these challenges, healthcare providers demand networking solutions that go beyond basic high speed connectivity. The network must be interoperable, scalable, and flexible in order to facilitate clinical collaboration, workflows, and overall availability of care while maintaining appropriate access control to data and services within a highly dynamic and mobile environment. With embedded intelligence that can be fine-tuned to the specific needs of a healthcare provider, Siemens – Enterasys networking solutions are leveraged by healthcare providers around the world to:
- Ensure the availability of both wired and wireless networked devices
- Prioritize access to clinical applications involved with patient care
- Enforce authorized access criteria to protect patient confidentiality and preserve data integrity