Healthcare Unified Communications Healthcare industry adapts to new communications imperatives The Unified Communications (UC) field is highly dynamic and gaining ground in many industries. Philips, a global player in healthcare, aims to become the change agent for UC in healthcare by introducing innovations in healthcare communication and supporting a mobile way of working. In a healthcare setting, improving communication can impact patient care. Adoption of UC technology in hospitals may perhaps be slower than other industries due to regulations concerning privacy and compliance; however as technologies mature and the industry s specific requirements become clearer, the expectation is that UC in healthcare will continue to gain momentum. Zoran Stankovic, Pierre America, Jia Du, Fons de Lange Philips Research, Eindhoven, November, 2014
health services has now entered the commercialization phase and will reach $26 billion USD globally by 2017. In our opinion, embedding communication features in those mobile applications/services will be one of the most prominent trends. Embedding UC features in mobile applications will enable efficient communication with persons/roles that are inherently mobile in the hospital environment (on-call roles, practitioners absent from the site, etc.). Chalengers NEC Alcatel-Lucent Cisco Avaya Mitel Leaders Microsoft Unify In addition, embedding communications features into medical devices can support workflow. Unified Communications systems will play important role in making this possible. ShoreTel Huawei Interactive Intelligence IBM Main Suppliers of Unified Communications Technology The Unified Communications field consists of those who offer UC systems in general, as well as suppliers who offer unified communication features as a service (UCaaS). Such solutions are especially important for dynamic organizations where communication needs can change at a fast pace, like healthcare providers. Efficient UC solutions have to be flexible enough to support those changes. Gartner analyzed the market in each of these two areas: Unified Communications (in general) and Unified Communications as a Service. Ability to excute Niche players Completeness of vision Source: Gartner (august 2014) Figure 1 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications (2014) Chalengers Microsoft Google Visionaries Leaders As of August 2014 Unified Communication in Healthcare Today s hospitals are complex and dynamic systems that have a critical need for effective and efficient communication. This applies to both communication between healthcare professions and communication between healthcare providers and vendors. Phones and pagers are still the most common healthcare communication tools, but a lot of valuable time is lost because the person-to-person communication is sub-optimal e.g. finding the right healthcare staff, with the right role and responsibility, at the right time and with the most appropriate way of communication. According to the T3iGroup report, businesses primary motivation in considering a transition to UC solutions is achieving a total cost of ownership (hardware, software, service, support) that is lower than the cost of a feature-similar PBX-based solution 1. Adopting UC technology in healthcare might be the first step towards implementing more efficient communication, by using UC features to easily determine the optimal moment in time and the optimal way to contact another person. The increased efficiency and decreased confusion among staff provided by such a system will result in improved care and reduced costs. 2,3 Supporting a mobile way of working and adapting communication to a highly dynamic environment is yet another way in which UC technology can help healthcare practitioners. According to a Mobile Health Market Report 4, the market for mobile According to Gartner 5,6,7,8, there are four main suppliers of UC systems: Cisco, Microsoft, Avaya, and Mitel (Figure 1). Compared to past years (primarily 2012 and 2013), Microsoft has made the most progress in their offering by adding support for mobile clients and a few other web-based media streaming features. Over the same period, Cisco, which was the 2013 leader, added video streaming to the Jabber client. The Magic Quadrant for the UCaaS field shows two strong contenders: Microsoft and Google. Google s technology, named WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications), offers plugin-free, peer-to-peer communication in the browser and has great potential in the UC field, but does not offer any functionality on the server side of a UC system (e.g., for larger conference calls, a third party solution must be purchased). Ability to excute Star2Star Telesphere icore Tefefonica Niche players Completeness of vision Source: Gartner (august 2014) Verizon AT&T CSC Sprint Avanade ShoreTell Arkadin HP Mitel Orange Intermedia Figure 2 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service (2014) West Thinking Phone 8x8 Visionaries RingCentral As of August 2014
Unified Communication Trends in Healthcare To uncover UC trends in healthcare, Philips Research has employed keyword search methods, primarily Illumin8 (a paid service that searches high quality databases such as those containing journals, conference proceedings, patents, etc.) and Google Keyword Tool. The results for Unified Communications, shown in Figure 3, present a strong trend upwards with hundreds of documents mentioning different products, organizations, people, and approaches. The trend varies when adding keyword filters such as hospital or healthcare, as shown in Figure 4. In this case, results are orders of magnitude lower compared to general UC trends and an upward trend is observed for the last several years. Unfortunately, due to the low number of returned documents, it cannot be concluded with high certainty that a valid trend is emerging. Nevertheless, all four indicators are clearly on the rise. Similarly, when researching general UC trends on Google, Philips Research has identified interesting trends. A keyword search was conducted on the leading UC suppliers: - Microsoft Lync - Cisco Jabber - Avaya Aura - Siemens Openscape - Polycom RealPresence The Google Trends service returns graphs that can be used to compare the general population s (i.e., the population using the Google search engine) interest in different search terms. These results, shown in Figure 5, suggest that Microsoft and Cisco are the main competitors in the general UC field. In general, the interest in Microsoft Lync is a few times larger than the interest in any other provider. Numbers of Jounal and Patent Documents per Year 2.400 2.200 2.000 1.800 1.600 1.400 1.200 1.000 800 600 400 200 0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Organizations Products People Approaches Numbers of Jounal and Patent Documents per Year 34 32 30 28 26 24 22 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Organizations Products People Approaches Figure 3 Number of documents returned when searching for Unified Communications term Figure 4 Number of documents returned when searching for Unified Communications and healthcare/hospital terms
Figure 5 Relative interests in keywords containing combination of manufacturer and product name (Microsoft Lync, Cisco Jabber, Avaya Aura, etc.) Figure 6 Relative interests in keywords containing combination of manufacturer and product name for UCaaS Figure 7 Relative interests over time of UC technologies compared to the searches in the Health category Similar developments are observed in the general trends for the UCaaS field. Figure 6 illustrates the results obtained when using a combination of manufacturer and product names as input to the Google Trends service. Similarly, when researching general UC trends on Google, Philips Research has identified interesting trends. A keyword search was conducted on the leading UC suppliers: - Microsoft Lync - Cisco Jabber - Avaya Aura - Siemens Openscape - Polycom RealPresence The Google Trends service returns graphs that can be used to compare the general population s (i.e., the population using the Google search engine) interest in different search terms. These results, shown in Figure 5, suggest that Microsoft and Cisco are the main competitors in the general UC field. In general, the interest in Microsoft Lync is a few times larger than the interest in any other provider. In summary, Unified Communications solutions are quickly gaining ground. It is expected that soon most healthcare enterprises will start investigating UC systems deployment for their facility or hospital enterprise. While Microsoft and Cisco can offer general purpose UC systems, they cannot offer access to healthcare equipment and data. We believe that UC systems installed in hospitals can only fully realize their potential through full integration with medical equipment. Full integration will lead to additional value such as improved personnel efficiency, workflow enhancement, and operational excellence, which can result in improved patient care. 9,10 Until this integration happens, and while healthcare information pathways are separated from person-to-person communication pathways, UC systems will not be able to demonstrate their full value. Philips leads the way Philips is a global player in healthcare, leading the way with innovation that matters to you. Unified Communications is a topic of central importance to Philips as it enables people to freely connect, hence bringing Philips technology a step closer to its end users, supporting them in their objectives to improve clinical outcomes and patient care. Philips Healthcare aims to develop leadership in Unified Communication integration into care settings and be the first vendor to bring full Unified Communications capabilities into healthcare products and services. References [1] InfoTrack for Unified Communications: Impact of Microsoft Lync on the Enterprise Voice Market 2013. T3iGroup, Cedar Knolls, New Jersey, June 13lync.pdf [2] The Six Ways Leading Hospitals Use Unified Communications to Improve Patient Care, Safety, and Satisfaction. http://eblast. 2013. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/itanalyst/docs/07-10- carouselindustries.com/2011/newsletter/feb/articles/amcom-6-ways- Hospitals-Unified-Communications.pdf. Accessed 26 October 2014. [3] http://www.articlesbase.com/communication-articles/how-hospitals- use-unified-communications-to-improve-patient-care-safety-and- satisfaction-4687789.html. Accessed 26 October 2014. [4] Ken Terry: Mobile Health Market to Reach $26B by 2017. Information Week. July 30, 2013. http://www.informationweek.com/mobile/mobilehealth-market-to-reach-$26b-by-2017/d/d-id/1110964 [5] Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications 2014: Microsoft Lync Takes Lead from Cisco. Matt Landis, 8 May, 2014. http:// windowspbx.blogspot.nl/2014/08/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-unified. html [6] Gartner 2014 Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, Multiregional, 2014 report. http://westipc.com/gartner_ucaas/ [7] Daniel O Connell and Bern Elliot: Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, North America. Gartner, November 19, 2012. http://www.unifiedcommunicationsboston.com/files/143836.pdf [8] Daniel O Connell and Bern Elliot: Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, North America. Gartner, November 5, 2013. http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-1mq4xl1&ct=131107 [9] (http://www.articlesbase.com/communication-articles/how-hospitals- use-unified-communications-to-improve-patient-care-safety-and- satisfaction-4687789.html. Accessed 26 October 2014 [10] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/healthblog/archive/2012/11/26/using- communication-and-collaboration-tools-to-improve-patient-care- and-clinical-workflow.aspx. Accessed 26 October 2014.
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