While healthcare providers have always been focused on controlling costs, the provision of equitable access to health services and improving the patient care experience are now claiming more attention—along with developing new sources of revenue. Facilitating those goals requires that healthcare CIOs empower clinicians, nurses and care providers with collaboration technology that helps them put the required skill sets “in the room,” efficiently and securely access and manage patient information, and develop new models of care delivery.
In this brief video, Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn, vice president of Learning@Cisco, and Frances Dare, director, Cisco IBSG Global Healthcare Practice, discuss the transformations taking place in the healthcare industry.
A Princeton Survey Research Associates International survey found that the top three Telehealth approaches considered to have the most potential during the next five years include:
- Health professionals electronically sharing or accessing diagnostic images, video, or patient biometric data to consult on diagnosis and treatment.
- Health professionals collaborating with each other via information and communication technologies to diagnose and treat patients.
- Providing clinical training and clinical references for health professionals by using information and communication technologies.
Putting the right skills “in the room” is the core element for all three Telehealth approaches in the list above. Here are several examples of the technology powering the processes needed to turn the potential into reality:
- Presence, a feature of unified communications, enables medical teams to find and connect with clinicians who have the expertise to consult on diagnosis and treatment.
- Video conferencing solutions, such as Cisco WebEx, enable doctors and clinicians to make “virtual house calls” to patients in rural areas and remote locations around the world. It also allows health professionals to collaborate with each other and to share images and data to improve diagnosis and designing treatment.
- Video collaboration portals, such as Cisco Show and Share, provide a secure portal where training can be accessed by health professionals on demand, providing self-paced learning they can fit into their busy schedules.
- A unified wireless network ensures the continuous availability of patient information and enables nurses and clinicians to access it from a patient’s bedside easily—without spending inordinate amounts of time logging in and out of systems.
The technology exists today to power the transformation of patient care without risking the security of patient information. Promoting efficiency and productivity is not just about moving data faster, but about enabling approaches with the potential to generate new business models, improve patient satisfaction, and develop new care models that source revenues.
What are some new trends in healthcare IT that you’re seeing emerge?
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