Cisco Connected Health – technologies that are maturing the healthcare industry

Yesterday, via Cisco TelePresence and WebEx, Cisco hosted an international roundtable examining the current demands placed on the healthcare industry and how technology is addressing many of these issues. A panel comprised of Cisco executives and customers discussed how connected technologies and services can enable healthcare providers to help improve patient care, address security and patient privacy, and manage BYOD devices all while increasing efficiency and lowering costs.

Participating in the panel were representatives from Seattle Children’s in Seattle, WA; Resolute Health in New Braunfels, TX; Fundación Peluffo-Giguens in Montevideo, Uruguay; and Albert Einstein Israelita Hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, along with Kathy English, senior director, public sector and healthcare marketing for Cisco.

Kathy kicked off the discussion by offering several eye opening healthcare statistics. Did you know, for example, that 41% of patients would switch hospitals for a better experience? Or that in 95% of countries, the rising cost of medical care exceeds the rate of general inflation?

These statistics illustrate the difficult challenges many of our healthcare customers face today. Therefore, during the healthcare roundtable, Cisco unveiled two new connected health offerings – Cisco HealthPresence 2.5 and Cisco Services for Connected Health. These solutions help enable efficient, convenient, high-quality patient care, and more collaboration across the healthcare continuum.

Roderick Bell II spoke directly to the successful deployment of Cisco HealthPresence at Resolute Health – so successful, in fact, that local schools are now connecting nurses to students across the district, thereby lowering costs and expanding the access of nurses to students in need. Roderick expects local businesses and county jails to join Resolute Health’s HealthPresence initiative later this year. Likewise, via Cisco TelePresence, Fundación Peluffo-Giguens in Uruguay has connected 10 hospitals in the country with the central hospital in the Montevideo, improving access to specialists and avoiding travel and logistics complexities for remote patients and their families. Similarly, the implementation of Cisco’s TelePresence endpoints in Brazil have allowed Albert Einstein Israelita Hospital to deliver care from a distance to seriously ill patients if no specialists are available at the public hospital or if a second opinion is required to provide a more extensive assessment.

Wes Wright, CIO of Seattle Children’s spoke to his overall success with Cisco. When tasked with building a virtual desktop infrastructure program at the hospital, he found that Cisco’s Unified Computing System is the best out there: During the event he said, “I wanted the power of Cisco behind me… and it’s worked!”

Yesterday’s roundtable further demonstrates Cisco’s commitment to connecting the previously unconnected with an intelligent network at the foundation.

You can view the discussion here on YouTube and we’d love to hear your thoughts about the future of healthcare delivery. How do you think video collaboration tools will transform the way your health is monitored?