As part of its follow-up coverage of the 2011 HIMSS Conference, Mobile Healthcare Today is presenting a series of Q&As, called 6 Questions, with prominent executives and thinkers in the mobile healthcare sector. To gain a consistent high-level view of developments in the market and the technology, we’ve asked each leader the same set of, you guessed it, six questions.
Today’s 6 Questions is with Ron Emerson of Polycom, Inc. The global director of healthcare for Polycom, Ron Emerson served as the Chair of the American Telemedicine Association Industry Advisory Council from 2007-2008. He has nearly two decades of experience in the healthcare industry, having developed a variety of innovative video-based clinical and medical education applications.
Mobile Healthcare Today: In your view, what are the characteristics of an optimal mobile healthcare strategy?
Ron Emerson: An optimal mobile healthcare strategy must be based on interoperability and open standards for best-of-breed solutions, and must provide the broadest support for mobile applications for voice, video, and data. Secondly, it’s important that a mobile healthcare strategy take into account the unique usage requirements for individual healthcare environments and applications. Consumer-grade solutions may not provide acceptable reliability, security, and durability for 24x7 shift applications. Lastly, the optimal mobile strategy must consider the bandwidth and deployment requirements for emerging technologies such as cloud-based applications and real-time video.
MHCT: Where will this space be in 5 years, and how will your solution evolve/scale with it?
RE: In the next five years, we’ll continue to see a high rate of technology advancement driven by demand for the mobilization of communication and critical applications. We’re already seeing rapid adoption of multimedia mobile devices like the Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab. These devices will drive demand for integrated mobile voice and video applications and mainstream adoption of higher bandwidth network solutions such as 802.11n Wi-Fi and 4G.
We’ll also see unification of communication solutions, or unified communications, to increase responsiveness and efficiency through integrated voice, messaging, and video, and cloud-based solutions and to mobilize applications across multiple devices and networks. Polycom is making significant investments in product development, and working with leading industry partners to provide innovative solutions to take advantage of this technology evolution and to meet healthcare customer demands. We are delivering on our UCEverywhere strategy to seamlessly connect communications across the continuum of consumer, mobility, small to medium-sized businesses and the enterprise, regardless of platform or network and across many industries including healthcare.
MHCT: From a physician/caregiver perspective, what are the top 3 things your solution enables?
RE: Polycom’s wireless solutions provide improved responsiveness and efficiency for caregivers in patient-care environments by providing real-time voice and application access in the caregiver’s hand, which addresses healthcare initiatives for improving patient satisfaction and safety. Our newly released SpectraLink 8400-series handsets enable mobile integration with patient care systems such as nurse call and patient monitoring to provide faster response, and the optional integrated barcode scanner optimizes caregiver workflows to further improve efficiency and patient safety through fast and accurate data entry for applications such as medication administration. Polycom telemedicine/video solutions improve patient care by enabling access to patients and physicians across any geography. Patients and doctors can interact in real-time with HD quality video, connected to HD medical devices, improving access to medical expertise and better utilization of critical resources. Healthcare enterprises can establish centers of excellence that can be leveraged across their networks to deliver the best care regardless of location.
MHCT: How does your solution help enable regulatory compliance and patient data privacy?
RE: Polycom healthcare solutions incorporate embedded security features such as data encryption and user authentication to ensure privacy and compliance with industry regulations. Polycom utilizes industry standards for security to enable interoperability without compromising data security or integrity. In addition, Polycom’s mobile communication solutions enable caregivers to move to private locations for conversations and utilize thin-client application support to ensure that patient data is not accessible without user authentication.
MHCT: What were you looking for at HIMSS, and what was your biggest takeaway from the show?
RE: HIMSS is a great opportunity to meet with our customers and partners to better understand their needs and issues, and to discuss their strategies and initiatives so we can help address them. Those discussions drive our development roadmap to make sure we’re investing in solutions to solve customer issues and help them meet their goals and objectives. HIMSS also allows us to demonstrate our solutions and capabilities to help customers with their communication and technology strategies. It’s also an opportunity for Polycom’s healthcare solutions team to join with our partners and see what others in the industry are delivering. It’s an opportunity to discover ways to leverage complementary technologies and deliver enhanced connected healthcare solutions. Lastly, HIMSS is the best opportunity for us to meet with analysts and media in the healthcare space to raise awareness of our solutions and to get expert perspectives on the industry.
MHCT: What will be the major developments of 2011 in this space, and how should healthcare CIO’s prepare for and deal with them?
RE: This year we’ll see continued adoption of EMR and supporting network infrastructure investments. The adoption of mobile tablet devices will continue to drive demand for mobilization of healthcare applications across device form factors and operating systems. Healthcare CIOs are likely to be well down the path of planning and deployment of EMR solutions, but the rapid adoption of mobile tablets may require near-term investments in wireless infrastructure and mobile application support.
