Feb 10
2022
The Collaboration Tools That Are Bridging The Digital Divide In Healthcare
By Scott Simmons, healthcare lead, Poly.
The pandemic was a critical catalyst to change working habits and a massive accelerant to the digital transformation already reshaping the working world. And, this is no more evident than in healthcare where telehealth has quickly grown by orders of magnitude and organizations have fundamentally changed how their essential services are provided.
Although the sudden and rapid demand for telehealth and remote collaboration initially introduced a state of disorder, the last year revealed that telehealth is an efficient adjunct to traditional in-person healthcare and that remote employees can be just as productive working from home as they were in the office.
As a result, expectations have changed for healthcare workers who have experienced an alternative way of providing care and performing their jobs, as well as for patients who have been introduced to a simpler and more convenient way of receiving care. What’s more, remote services provide accessible options to people with mobility limitations and address geographic maldistribution of healthcare expertise.
At Poly, for example, we partnered with Baptist Health Corbin hospital in eastern Kentucky to deliver remote care and expand the reach of medical services to rural communities, while reducing travel costs and drive time for patients and improving safety and security. A challenge for Corbin residents is getting easy access to healthcare due to driving conditions, geographic distance, and lack of public transportation.
Coupled with a global pandemic, Baptist Health Corbin decided to prioritize solutions that would enable them to provide quality care to citizens who could not easily visit their medical facilities. By adopting video solutions for patient rooms, remote clinics and integrations with medical diagnostic tools throughout their facilities, they are empowered with video conferencing that is simple to set up and easy to use, reliable and interoperable with other video products. Baptist Health Corbin patients can now get remote, consistent care in a safe and secure environment without the need to travel.