STATUS leverages Microsoft Skype for Business for Zero-Distance video-enabled Healthcare

The increased popularity of using the digital technologies and mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) has encouraged developers to create the new generation of healthcare applications, focused on easier, faster, cheaper and mobile communication between patients and doctors, paving the way to new and improved medical services. Patients expect their healthcare services provider to be accessible at any hour and to provide on-demand expert consultations or second opinions. Given today’s digital technologies, the idea of going to the doctor and spending 2 hours in traffic for a routine health check seems incredibly archaic.

In the upcoming years, the efficiency of medical services will improve significantly, not just because the new digital and mobile technology make this possible, but also because there is social and economic pressure created by an ever increasing number of patients, opposed to a stable or even diminishing number of medical personnel. According to the World Health Organization and the World Bank by 2030, we’ll need to train and deploy 40-50 million new health and social care workers globally and by that time health worker deficit could grow to 17.3 million.

In this context, with the healthcare service providers investing in web or mobile applications to decrease costs and increase patient engagement, the viability of “telemedicine” is becoming reality. Healthcare industry is adopting slowly but surely the latest “consumer-like” video technologies with great user experience but with advanced security and compliance capabilities to deliver video-enabled face-to-face healthcare services.

In this way, patients no longer need to wait for a routine consultation or for a medical prescription. At the same time, the patients save time and obtain the best medical expertise being serviced on the spot by the best specialists, while the healthcare service providers gain efficiency by fully utilizing each of its specialized healthcare practitioners to the fullest extent possible.

This is what is called Zero-Distance Healthcare.

In respond to all these challenges, Star Storage created STATUS – a solution for electronic medical records management and patient engagement, offering a better way to enable doctors and other medical services providers’ staff to interact with patients in a secure and friendly environment. And now STATUS is using Microsoft Skype for Business for the best video interaction experience in order to deliver zero-distance video-enabled healthcare.

This new integration fosters team collaboration and increases efficiency, helping the entire medical ecosystem to provide better healthcare services at lower costs while improving the overall patient experience and engagement.

And, with the integration with Hitachi Content Platform from Hitachi Data Systems the medical sensitive data is even better secured with extended storage options and unified information governance across all storage repositories: on-prem, private cloud or in public cloud provided by Microsoft Azure.

STATUS with Microsoft Skype for Business enables clinicians to provide the same level of high quality care services across the entire patient’s ecosystem, regardless of the their physical location, and, at the same time, deliver customizable care plans based on permanently engaged patients.

STATUS offers the best functionalities for:

• Digital Healthcare – Enabling “Zero-Paper healthcare”, designed to help healthcare businesses to be successful in a fast-changing digital world, to treat more patients, get reimbursed faster and stay ahead of change;
• Secured Healthcare – A safe and secure location for storing medical data with excellent capabilities for long-term medical records storage (retention, digital shredding);
• Collaborative Healthcare – Redefining the way healthcare providers work, collaborate on medical records and connect with their patients;
• Connected Healthcare – IoT (Internet of Things) – Patients are able to get lab results, medical images, visit records and prescription history from a growing list of health applications, imaging and labs devices and pharmacies apps. By leveraging “Zero-Distance Healthcare” with Virtual Health Assistance and Second Opinion Services provided through voice and video conference patient engagement & community integration takes a new level;
• Mobile Healthcare – Available anytime, on any device;
• Cloud-delivered Healthcare – Powerful cloud-based technologies, on-premises installation option and world-class services built to scale – on your desktop, tablet, and smartphone.

STATUS offers to its users a series of innovative capabilities, all the features being available from a powerful, yet simple and user friendly interface:

• Complete electronic medical records management –  full medical records of the patient, built with data coming from medical systems, but also from the patient and doctors;
• Easy and secure sharing of medical documents and investigation between patients and doctors;
• Mobility and IoT (Internet of Things) – native mobile apps for integration with wearables and other portable devices for collecting health information;
• Appointments management – Self Service or through the health service provider / insurer Call Center;
• Medical Parameters Management. Presents evolution, history and trends for the medical and wellness parameters, possibility to define specific set of parameters (Health Views) for a specific need (e.g. monitoring a chronic condition with several parameters under daily review);
• Medication management – Current medication, prescriptions management, medication tracking / history (taken / missed), mobile notifications / confirmations;
• Find a Clinic – Proximity and specialty-based clinic selection on geo-location and specialties; Advanced filters tool for easy find the most suitable clinic around; Detailed information about Clinics capabilities (kept updated by the clinic itself);
• Find a Specialist – Identify the best doctor based on advanced filtering criteria; Doctor detailed profile; Easy to use doctor’s appreciations mechanism;
• Build-in collaboration system for easy patient-doctor and doctor-doctor communication;
• Telemedicine – with an integration with Microsoft Skype for Business; Virtual Appointments are made by Patient; There is a choice of Call (Phone) or Video Call appointments; Video call – maximized window for better view or minimized window for patient electronic medical file access; Instant access to medical records of patient; Taking/sharing notes during consultation;
• Simple integration with existing HIS/CIS/PACS systems;
• Flexible On-Premises implementation or Cloud delivery with multiple information storage options (local storage, private cloud, Microsoft Azure with a worldwide network of Microsoft-managed data centers for global coverage or hybrid environments).

Achieve immediate benefits of telemedicine when working with STATUS:

• Reduce readmission rates and home visits for ambulatory teams thus lowering costs;
• Shorten the necessary hospital times and reduce mortality by keeping the patients permanently informed about their health status;
•  Improve efficiency and productivity of medical care activities related to emergency situations leveraging best practices adherence across distributed geographically locations;
• Enable patient education and constant engagement in following their treatment plans for better clinical results;
• Provide the same level of healthcare services seamless of patient’s physical location;
• Increase prevention effectiveness by detecting health issues at an early stage and addressing them accordingly;
• Improve clinician retention and scale your highly skilled practitioners experience across different regions increasing your reputation and revenue while reducing operational costs.