UC
Last week the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (IMSS) conference focused on emerging technologies for the healthcare industry. UC was front and center. Avaya and Cisco launched new healthcare-focused UC products to help improve patient care, hospital operations, and expand the use of video conferencing for telemedicine. We’ve seen the healthcare vertical as a UC pioneer over the last several years. Why? Because the most tangible benefit of UC is in shortening process times via improved communications and collaboration. In healthcare, improved communications can shorten treatment and response times, decrease waiting, reduce errors, and allow institutions to more efficiently use their staff resources. UC can help address scenarios such as an advice nurse having to look up numerous phone numbers, leave messages in multiple voice mailboxes, and issue pages to numerous devices or over PA systems, never knowing if or when the message was received. UC can eliminate general voicemail boxes that require on-call staff to routinely check for messages rather than receive proactive notification of new calls. As healthcare organizations expand the use of virtual staff, caregivers must reach on-call physicians or nurses regardless of time or location. Virtual workers rely on mobile devices, which often are limited in the applications they support. Many organizations rely on contract staff with little to no control over their communication capabilities. Nonetheless, they must easily share information, communicate, and interact unencumbered by technical limitations while protecting patient information to meet regulatory requirements. In all these scenarios UC can deliver benefits by harmonizing communications, tying communications services into other patient care systems, and increasing support for wireless users. Anyone charged with managing healthcare organizations should strive to understand the potential benefits that UC can bring to their organization.
