Polycom® RealPresence™  to improve patient health care and reduce costs across NHS in SE Scotland

Polycom Inc. is helping NHS Lothian to improve health services internally and with other health boards across South East Scotland. Over the last 18 months, NHS Lothian and Polycom have created a highly collaborative working environment built around Polycom HD video solutions. Using video to conference face-to-face over long distances, rather than having to be there in person, benefits staff with improved efficiency, benefits patients with greater convenience, and benefits the health board as a whole with substantial cost savings.

To date, Lothian has deployed seven Polycom® RealPresence™ Immersive Solutions and ten Polycom Practitioner carts in areas such as neonatal care, stroke consultations and healthcare support in prisons.  These solutions have already helped NHS Lothian make significant savings in operational costs – for example, running one particular meeting via videoconferencing solutions saved £1,600 in travel expenses alone.

NHS Lothian is responsible for patients in a geographically dispersed area, providing care for people living in Edinburgh, East Lothian, Mid Lothian and West Lothian and providing a range of regional and national services which cover patients across Scotland. In particular, the health board works closely with NHS Fife, NHS Borders and NHS Dumfries and Galloway. The health board has around 27,000 staff, 200 sites and three A&E departments, making it the second largest in Scotland.

The health board had previously used videoconferencing for internal meetings typically in conference rooms, but staff felt the technology could be used in a more collaborative and flexible way for consultants and the treatment of patients. NHS Lothian chose Polycom because of the superior quality of Polycom video.

Iain Robertson, head of IT infrastructure and operations at NHS Lothian, said: “We have a number of partnerships with technology organisations, and it is important that these are two-way relationships.  Not only does Polycom have the right technical solutions, it has an incredibly experienced healthcare team offering a complete service solution.

“We made the right decision in choosing Polycom, and the results speak for themselves. We have kept all of our original meeting rooms and we now have the ability to connect to remote teams. We are more connected than ever, with the ability to use voice, video, unified communications and telepresence all in one call,” said Robertson.

“NHS Lothian is realising the full benefits of truly unified communications built around HD video collaboration,” said Andrew Graley, director of healthcare, Polycom EMEA. “Residents in Lothian and across the South East of Scotland can now communicate with healthcare professionals like never before – encouraging a self-service approach to health. Together with the cost and environmental savings from video collaboration, NHS Lothian is on to a winning formula.”

NHS Lothian is using the videoconferencing systems for a number of different activities including:

·         Hosting case meetings in the Regional Cancer Centre and connecting geographically dispersed clinicians working remotely to help them feel engaged and share information. Patients are also invited to speak to experts in Edinburgh in cases where travel is not possible.

·         Providing more access to ground-breaking medical centres like the Clinical Sleep Services Centre in Edinburgh. Patients can go to the centre for an initial visit and then connect with medical staff via videoconferencing for follow-up sessions.

·         Running physiotherapy classes across Lothian, so patients don’t have to travel to Edinburgh for a class but can connect with experts via video

·         Improving communication and collaboration between the NHS Lothian executive team and other local authorities to help share best practice and expertise

·         Providing training and support for staff to help transfer expert knowledge across Lothian

Stryker Communications Selects Glowpoint to Enhance IP Video Platform for Operating Rooms. Solution delivered from OpenVideo™ cloud makes operating rooms accessible beyond hospital network for clinical education and remote monitoring

Glowpoint, Inc. has nnounced that Stryker Communications, a division of Stryker, and a leader in designing and integrating operating rooms, has added Glowpoint's cloud managed video services to its IP video platform for videoconferencing and broadcasting from operating rooms.

As part of the partnership, Stryker will integrate Glowpoint's cloud-based Virtual Video Room (VVR) into its ConnectSuite IP Video platform to enable ad-hoc, multi-party videoconferencing from operating rooms. Integrating the VVR with ConnectSuite will allow medical professionals to easily collaborate with others from locations within and outside of the hospital's network. This will provide more robust functionality for medical professionals who use videoconferencing as a means to teach or connect with medical professionals at other institutions intra-operatively.  

In addition, Stryker will also be adding Glowpoint's video webcasting capabilities to ConnectSuite in order to enable live video broadcasts from within the OR to reach viewers all over the world on videoconferencing systems, PC desktops, laptops, and mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads.

"We chose Glowpoint as a key partner for our IP video platform because we needed a fully cloud-hosted service with the capability to connect many different types of videoconferencing systems across different networks," said Chad Croasdale, General Manager of Stryker Communications. "We also needed a service that would provide the highest quality, reliable video experience for medical professionals, and we are confident that Glowpoint will deliver this with their OpenVideo™ cloud. This partnership will enable us to make operating rooms even more accessible for in-procedure consulting, teaching and remote monitoring."

Glowpoint's VVR is a 'meet-me' service for SIP and H.323 based videoconferencing systems fully hosted from the OpenVideo™ cloud, eliminating the need for hospitals to invest in on-network video infrastructure and support. The VVR supports high definition video calls up to 1080p quality, and allows users to remotely select and control all video sources being viewed by remote participants. Integration with ConnectSuite will allow users to make video calls directly from a control panel located in the OR.

"Clinical education and access to remote specialists is a critical need for hospitals, physicians and patients," said Stephen Vobbe, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Glowpoint. "We are excited to be working with the worldwide leader of OR technology and communications to provide hospitals with a simple, high-quality visual collaboration tool."

The enhancements to Stryker's ConnectSuite IP video platform including Glowpoint's cloud managed services will be available later in 2012.