Polycom Helps Healthcare Organizations Reduce Unnecessary Rehospitalizations, Supports Prevention and Wellness with New Video Collaboration Solutions for Robotics, Mobile Devices and Web Browsers
<0> Polycom, Inc.Brianna Woon, +1 408-586-4072 </0>
Helping healthcare organizations improve medical care, and supporting prevention and wellness initiatives with HD video collaboration, . (Nasdaq: PLCM), the global leader in open, standards-based unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), today announced alliances with robotics innovator Anybots Inc. and patient-monitoring company Vivify Health, Inc. to develop new video collaboration solutions that can help reduce unnecessary rehospitalizations. The company also recently announced the availability of that extends secure, reliable and high-quality enterprise-grade video collaboration to anyone with a browser and Web camera, making it even easier for healthcare organizations to connect face-to-face with patients or other experts outside the hospital.
Telemedicine continues to gain significant momentum in the healthcare industry, with organizations around the world using Polycom video solutions to help provide better care and even save lives, from telestroke and teleneurology programs, to surgery consultations, to prevention and wellness initiatives and beyond.
“Today our healthcare system is challenged with an aging population, too few practitioners, and adjusting to a major change in its approach to patient care. With collaborative video solutions you can address access, prevention and wellness, and continuation of care, all of which becomes important as we try to tackle the problem of unnecessary rehospitalizations,” said Dr. Deborah A. Jeffries, Director Global Healthcare Marketing, Polycom. “Video collaboration solutions such as Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite enable healthcare organizations to extend video to anyone that has a camera and Web browser, so now healthcare practitioners can easily reach patients in their homes to provide an increased level of care or easily consult with other experts outside the hospital.”
Video-enabled applications such as robots and tablet apps give medical specialists flexibility in how they schedule appointments, including virtual house calls, whether in the office, at the hospital, on the go or at home. These video collaboration solutions are powerful innovations in healthcare that can promote richer conversations, more effective discussions, and faster decision-making, which can cut costs by reducing the number of situations where patients need to be re-admitted to the hospital for closer examination.
is a pure software extension of the , enabling universal access to enterprise-grade video collaboration to hundreds of millions of people, allowing healthcare organizations to easily meet face-to-face with anyone with a browser, whether they are on a PC, mobile device or video room system. In addition, by integrating Skype, Facebook and Google Talk contacts in the industry’s first global presence-aware personal directory, the solution combines the click-to-connect convenience of a Web app with the enterprise-grade, secure experience required for organizations to scale to hundreds or thousands of video users. Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite is an easy way for healthcare organizations to connect to each other, specialists and patients for more productive discussions and consultations over video. (For more information about Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite, see the related .)
“Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite will provide healthcare clinicians with an easy-to-use and secure method of communicating with patients at home using their own devices – such as a PC or tablet – and software which they are already familiar with,” said Iain Robertson, Head of IT infrastructure and Operations at NHS Lothian, which provides healthcare services for the second-largest residential population in Scotland of approximately 800,000 people. “Patients will be able to avoid unnecessary trips to hospital clinics and have pre-scheduled video meetings, and our clinical staff will initiate the consultations by sending a URL to the patients. This ‘virtual clinic’ model will change the way we provide care, making it easier and more efficient for all parties involved, and is building on the existing video capability of the organization.”
Using video also reduces travel time for patients and healthcare providers, and helps providers use clinicians’ time more efficiently. While this is especially valuable for patients in remote locations, it also encourages patients everywhere to stay in close touch with their providers by making it simpler for them to do so.
"Rural medicine is such a challenge due to the distances that must be covered and limited resources," said Philip Wolford, coordinator of Saint Vincent's regional telemedicine network. "Our teleneurology program is a great example of how Polycom video collaboration helps us overcome that challenge and has literally changed the way we practice medicine. It is patient-centered care in the purest form. By reducing rehospitalizations, our program is driving costs down for patients and other payers."
Today’s announcement follows other recent partner announcements made by Polycom in the healthcare space detailing how video collaboration can be used in conjunction with partners’ products to meet a range of emerging use cases. See the related to learn more about Polycom’s alliances with AMD Global Telemedicine, Eceptionist and GlobalMed.
The underlying infrastructure for Polycom RealPresence Mobile and Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite is the Polycom RealPresence Platform, the industry’s most interoperable, secure, reliable and scalable software infrastructure for universal video collaboration. For more information, visit the
Demonstrations of the Anybots QB robot, the Vivify Health care management platform, Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite, and other Polycom HD video collaboration solutions for healthcare including the , are available at the Polycom booth (#632) at American Telemedicine Association in Austin, Tex., May 5-7, 2013.
For more information about , and , see the related .
In related healthcare news today, Polycom announced that Belgium-based AZ Sint-Jan Brugge Hospital is using Polycom RealPresence video collaboration solutions to help the surgical staff consult on live medical operations, as well as for training sessions (see the related ).
In addition, last week NHS Cumbria & Lancashire (another healthcare network in the NHS system) announced the immense success of using Polycom video collaboration to advance the Cardiac and Stroke Network program. More than 520 patients in Cumbria and Lancashire have benefited from the telestroke service since its launch in July 2011, with over 220 of those patients receiving thrombolysis – a treatment that can save lives if provided in a timely fashion (see the related ).
Polycom is the global leader in open, standards-based unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) solutions for voice and video collaboration, trusted by more than 415,000 customers around the world. Polycom solutions are powered by the Polycom® RealPresence® Platform, comprehensive software infrastructure and rich APIs that interoperate with the broadest set of communication, business, mobile and cloud applications and devices to deliver secure face-to-face video collaboration in any environment. Polycom and its ecosystem of over 7,000 partners provide truly unified communications solutions that deliver the best user experience, highest multi-vendor interoperability, and lowest TCO. Visit or connect with us on , , and to learn how we’re pushing the greatness of human collaboration forward.
NOTE: The product plans, specifications, and descriptions herein are provided for information only and subject to change without notice, and are provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied. Polycom reserves the right to modify future product plans at any time. Products and related specifications referenced herein are not guaranteed and will be delivered on a when and if available basis.
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