Cisco looks ahead to ‘virtual healthcare’
- 26 November 2007
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Best known as the provider of hardware that make networks run, Cisco is often out of sight and mind in healthcare. Health professionals may have a Cisco IP phone on their desk but have little reason to worry about the network infrastructure that sits behind it.
At a strategic level, however, Cisco believes it has a key role to play in the delivery of safe, affordable and accessible care. The IT giant plays a key role in delivering e-health in the US, with a close relationship with HIMMS (The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) and helps to operate the Community for Connected Health.
Nicholas Augustinos, Cisco’s director for healthcare architecture and innovation, outlined this strategic vision to E-Health Europe last month at the Telco 2.0 3rd Executive Brainstorm in London.
“Across Europe we see the same desire as many private hospitals are expressing in the US: citizens want to take control of their own health and this is becoming increasingly important as the continuing ageing population continues to put enormous strains on global health systems.”
He said current healthcare systems and their underpinning frameworks are unable to meet these demands: “The simple infrastructures cannot cope with the pressure, we are updating them to be able to cope with the changing needs of the 21st century.”
Augistinos said Cisco has been a key player in healthcare for over a decade now and that its presence can be seen globally.
In the UK, it has been working closely with BT to provide some of the communication tools needed to introduce voice over internet protocol (VOIP) across the NHS’s N3 data network. In addition Cisco has worked to help to make NHS Direct and NHS 24 VOIP-enabled services.
In Europe, it has been introducing new network and communications infrastructures to help streamline medical services. Most recently, it has implemented new networks at the Bethseda Children’s Hospital in Budapest, Hungary. In Eindhoven, the Netherlands, the company has helped provide citizens with access to high-speed broadband as part of the Netherland’s ‘Close the Gap’ broadband access project.
Kees Rovers, leader of the Close the Gap project, told EHE: “With the help of Cisco, we have been able to provide every citizen of Eindhoven with a free high-speed broadband service. This has helped to keep us all informed and has played a key part in helping us find out more about our health status and treatments we may need to later seek. It has changed the way that people communicate.”
This concept, Augustinos says, is key to what Cisco wants to achieve in healthcare: changing the way that people communicate to take control of their health.
He told EHE that he is proud of the changes his company has brought to the global healthcare arena, but feels that the cabling and futuristic handsets used by so many are just the beginning of what the company can offer.
Cisco is now looking ahead to the future and aiming to make a ‘proper name’ for itself in the e-health arena – one beyond the network and network services supplier role. Internally, researchers are working on several prototype visions, with an aim of making healthcare a more virtual service, providing distant treatments.
“What we have achieved to date in the UK, US, Europe and even further out, has been great. Current infrastructures help to deliver timely, sophisticated care and improves the patient experience, but we want to go further than this and extend the reach of healthcare from set locations to anywhere possible from shopping centres to universities.”
Later this year, Cisco will begin exploring this with the pilot of HealthPresence technology. The new HealthPresence solution will be piloted in all of the Scottish health boards, though exact locations are still to be decided. The solution involves specialised booths equipped with video conferencing facilities enabling a face-to-face referral from a remote doctor.
Augustinos, said: “With HealthPresence patients will be able to seek medical advice from anywhere; booths can be fitted anywhere from shopping malls to hotels to post offices. Ultimately, we’d like to see it packaged up and brought into the home. This self service healthcare stand concept is a truly unique vision for the future which will bring video conferencing into the mainstream.”
Beyond this, Cisco is also investigating the use of mobile vans to deliver care in car parks and street corners.
“The overall aim is to optimise healthcare nationally enabling scalable, secure and effective means of communications. We are looking into satellite-controlled prototyped mobile vans that can offer patients treatments on the scene via a video-conferencing session from a nearby doctor. This could even be parked outside a patient’s home or a hotel, serving demand for more doctors in the hospitality industry. The possibilities are endless,” said Augustinos.
Other matters of importance to Cisco include finding ways of dealing with rapidly growing ageing populations, says Augustinos.
“We want to help meet the European Commission’s push to provide first class quality healthcare to the ever increasing ageing population. We must remember that in the EU alone, over the next 50-odd years the average age will increase and more of us will be getting older and seeking medical assistance. We are thinking about the issue globally and addressing this locally.”
Work is ongoing with the Continua Alliance on these, and it this as well as the collaboration with HIMMS that makes Augustinos sure that Cisco is making the right choices in bringing about ‘the human network’ in the busy healthcare environment.
Chairing a panel of Telco’s all delivering healthcare services, Augustinos is aware he has competition, and is equally aware that many health workers are sceptical of companies who are strangers to healthcare, but he says that the offerings Cisco are set to unveil will open the market up further than ever before.
“We are opening up the market to provide a wide range of services from remote monitoring to video conferencing running along our mobile networks. Platforms offering telemedicine and self care through dedicated service centres are also in the pipeline. The industry is ready to move forward into the 21st century and we are equally prepared for the challenge.”
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