February 17, 2009 // Chicago, IL - IOCOM, a leading software provider for enterprise-class video conferencing capabilities, today announced that the UK's National Health Service (NHS) has deployed IOCOM's videoconferencing solution to link 11 hospitals across the West London Cancer Network (WLCN). By using IOCOM's technology for multi-site simultaneous connections and multi-image displays, NHS has seen improved clinical decisions through better collaboration and meeting attendance.
WLCN, a collaborative organization covering 1.8 million people, 11 hospitals and eight Primary Care Trusts, commissioned a study to select a teleconferencing system as a result of poor attendance at specialist multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meetings. The MDT process is the clinical decision making system for patients in the NHS. The system provides a method of achieving consistent and evidence-based decisions for all patients. During these meetings, the cancer teams generally include consultants from two or more specialities, nurses and their junior staff.
NHS chose IOCOM's videoconferencing solution because of its flexibility, scalability and breadth of collaboration features. The solution allows WLCN staff to meet face-to-face from a variety of locations, such as conference rooms, small offices, or desktop and laptop connections. Offline participants can also easily join meetings by telephone. WLCN is also using the IOCOM technology to simultaneously and securely transmit large amounts of clinical information - including pathology PACS images, cancer information management data and computer files such as PowerPoint presentations - for use during meetings. This capability is critical because each member presents individual patient information, which must be synthesised and displayed in such a way that decisions can be made quickly and precisely.
Dr. Simon Carter, Clinical Lead of London Imperial College NHS Trust, commented on the positive results he has seen so far: "Since the IOCOM system went live, collaboration within our specialist multi-disciplinary team meetings has greatly improved. Attendance at these meetings has almost doubled, and this has resulted in better clinical decisions through the greater shared expertise. The IOCOM videoconferencing solution has been a great success so far, and the cancer community is looking forward to future rollouts across England."
Since WLCN deployed the IOCOM solution in December 2007, user adoption and satisfaction from WLCN staff have been tremendous. Also, because the IOCOM system runs on NHS's own N3 network over IP instead of ISDN, NHS estimates it will save more than $187,000 (130,000 pounds) per year. The system guarantees bandwidth priority to the audio and video data to ensure reliable performance, and the N3 connectivity also guarantees the security of the data.
"Given the critical nature of collaboration and data sharing, health care organizations like NHS are a perfect fit for IOCOM's videoconferencing and collaboration solution," said Michael Galich, CEO and co-founder of IOCOM. "With the early success of the solution for WLCN, there is a tremendous opportunity to continue to expand our partnership throughout the NHS network."
Read the full case study (pdf).
About NHS
The National Health Service (NHS) is the name commonly used to refer to the four publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom, collectively or individually. The NHS accounts for over 2 million employees in the UK and it is the largest employer in Europe. Since its launch 60 years ago, the NHS has grown to become the world's largest publicly funded health service. It is also one of the most efficient, most egalitarian and most comprehensive. For more information, visit http://www.nhs.uk.
About IOCOM
IOCOM is a Chicago-based software provider that helps keep people connected through video, data and audio conferencing. Its solutions work with virtually any Internet-enabled device, including room systems, PCs, laptops and mobile devices. IOCOM's focus is on delivering the high performance necessary for smooth audio and video without the cost and complexity of bulkier, proprietary systems. Fortune 500 companies, government and education institutions, researchers, skilled workers, and general consumers currently rely on IOCOM's solutions. For more information, please visit http://www.iocom.com.