Friday, September 23, 2011

10 Ways Healthcare Facilities are Using Video Conferencing

1. Increase patient access to specialists and improve level of care. Video conferencing has allowed one hospital access to more trauma specialists from other locations. By providing residents the ability to remain in their home community for care, patient outcomes are improved.
2. Improve delivery of treatment. The creation of a central monitoring station that is remote to any hospital in the system has changed the way ICU care is delivered at a 600-bed teaching hospital and associated network in Pennsylvania. Vitals and status of patients are monitored constantly from a control console. The staff can call codes, initiate treatment orders, and determine if patients are ready for a step down unit.
3. Reduce the need to transfer patients and thus retain revenues. By using video conferencing to provide specialized ongoing care to patients, it creates more revenue opportunities for a hospital and network of clinics in upstate New York. In the past, these patients would be transferred to other hospitals.
4. Recruit top doctors. Technology, like video conferencing, has proven to be an important element in recruiting physicians.
5. Achieve acquisitions strategies below budget. An upstate New York hospital has been able to add new facilities to its portfolio without significant incremental travel spending by integrating the new facilities into their system through video conferencing.
6. Recruit and train more nurses. Video conferencing helps address the nurse shortage in many hospitals. One hospital found that nurses who are trained in their local communities through video conferencing tend to remain in those communities in larger numbers than those who are trained elsewhere.
7. Improve ongoing staff training. At a Midwestern network of clinics, new employees are trained in larger groups across multiple locations for common issues like benefits, hospital policies, or compliance. In addition, new information can be presented to several locations in a single session. For example, if the nursing desk application has been updated, teams of nurses can be trained at the same time rather than one at a time.
8. Reduce meeting overload. Regularly scheduled management and staff meetings are conducted via video conferencing. By making it easier for staff to attend, meeting attendance has improved. Plus, the facility is able to reduce travel costs and increase patient care as there are fewer staff absences.
9. Satisfy C.M.E. requirements. At New York and Philadelphia-area hospitals, doctors who had trouble finding time to travel to continuing education courses kept their skills sharp and certifications up-to-date by taking the courses through video conferencing.
10. Meet green initiatives. Video conferencing reduced the amount of travel and the associated carbon footprint, meeting the environmental objectives of one hospital.

Consider VIA3 CORPORATION. 
Providing healthcare services in today’s world includes constant pressure to increase the quality of patient care, each new market, provide new services, and control costs. VIA3 CORPORATION has aided medical professionals in increasing patient care by ensuring that they are doing what they do best — treating patients. Inspired by customers and their demand for continual innovation, VIA3 CORPORATION has become the proven technology leader with the strongest end-to-end total solution in the industry, as well as being HIPAA Compliant.

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