Solution Provider Explores the Importance of a Medical-Grade Telehealth Network
NEW YORK, July 5, 2016 – CIOs in the healthcare field are finding themselves in a unique and evolving position as their organizations work to provide medical care to more people while keeping costs and personnel in check. As a result, according to Logicalis Healthcare Solutions, the healthcare-focused arm of Logicalis US, an international IT solutions and managed services provider (www.us.logicalis.com), telehealth is becoming one of the most talked about IT solutions in the healthcare industry today. In addition to offering an alternative to routine in-office physician visits, through properly implemented telehealth solutions, hospitals can provide urgent expert or specialty care. This can include, for example, help for stroke or burn victims, even when a local specialist is unavailable. Telehealth can also help physicians reach people in remote or rural areas who may not be able to travel to a particular facility or specialist as well as those in more densely populated urban areas who find inner-city mass transit insufficient for their needs. Logicalis’ telehealth experts say one important key is to select a medical-grade unified communications network that will enable the quality of service necessary to allow a telehealth visit to look and feel nearly identical to a face-to-face in-office appointment.
“A medical-grade network offers users the kind of industry-specific framework necessary to deliver an experience that truly mimics an in-office appointment,” says Cory Rehfeldt, Director of the Collaboration Practice at Logicalis US. “When you have the right telehealth solution, it’s transformative. We’ve installed some Cisco telehealth solutions, for example, that have given our healthcare clients unprecedented interoperability – something you absolutely need if you are connecting with users in a variety of environments. To do telehealth right, you have to master the idea of communicating clearly with patients from wherever they are, at any time of day or night, and on any device they have available while still maintaining a quality of service that makes them feel like they’re there in person. It’s also critical to consider what integrating the right collaboration tools can mean to the workflow of a busy hospital or doctor’s office; without ‘presence awareness,’ for example, you don’t know who is on call and available to talk with patients via telehealth. When you have unified communications tools purpose-built into a customized telehealth solution, you can manage people, processes and costs much more effectively than you ever imagined.”
“There are a number of vendors bringing telehealth solutions to market today, so for CIOs considering a telehealth implementation, it’s important to find a solution provider partner that is knowledgeable in all aspects of telehealth, not just the solution software,” says Kim Garriott, Principal Consultant, Healthcare Strategies, Logicalis Healthcare Solutions. “They need a partner that understands both their business requirements as well as the many technology options available, and they need one that has the technical expertise and certifications to enable the design of a custom solution to meet the organization’s specific needs.”
To implement the kind of telehealth solution that both clinicians and patients will trust and use takes a lot of up-front planning. To help, the experts at Logicalis Healthcare Solutions have identified four key considerations every healthcare CIO should consider before putting telehealth into practice.
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About Logicalis
Logicalis is an international IT solutions and managed services provider with a breadth of knowledge and expertise in communications and collaboration; data center and cloud services; and managed services.
Logicalis employs over 4,000 people worldwide, including highly trained service specialists who design, deploy and manage complex IT infrastructures to meet the needs of over 6,500 corporate and public sector customers. To achieve this, Logicalis maintains strong partnerships with technology leaders such as Cisco, HP, IBM, EMC, NetApp, Microsoft, VMware and ServiceNow on an international basis. It has specialized solutions for enterprise and medium-sized companies in vertical markets covering financial services, TMT (telecommunications, media and technology), education, healthcare, retail, government, manufacturing and professional services, helping customers benefit from cutting-edge technologies in a cost-effective way.
The Logicalis Group has annualized revenues of over $1.5 billion from operations in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific and is one of the leading IT and communications solution integrators specializing in the areas of advanced technologies and services.
The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec Limited, listed on the Johannesburg and London AIM Stock Exchanges, with revenues of over $6 billion.
For more information, visit www.us.logicalis.com.
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