Hospitals are more connected today than ever before, helping healthcare workers to provide better, more efficient care. Connected medical devices are playing a significant role in enabling more effective data monitoring for better health outcomes, but this is not the only area that has seen considerable improvement. New wireless collaboration technology is helping caregivers to communicate more effectively and faster, improving the patient experience and saving valuable time.
The Intel Unite® solution is helping to lead this change, working with hospitals to utilize their existing IT infrastructure for a greater impact. A wireless content sharing and collaboration platform, it allows just about any device –– PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and even Linux –– to connect wirelessly to a room display via a wide variety of computer form-factors running Windows 10 and an Intel® Core™ i5 processor or higher –– with no additional hardware required.
To better understand the ways in which the Intel Unite solution is impacting the healthcare experience, let’s explore how patients and healthcare professionals are using the technology as they move throughout the hospital.
Fast and Secure Screen Sharing
As the patient waits in the exam room, she enjoys digital art or reads important messages shown on the room display. When the doctor enters the room, she enters the 6-digit PIN shown on the display into the Intel Unite app on her laptop and is instantly streaming high-resolution content to the same room display that was previously displaying art or messages, making it easier to discuss lab results or review other materials with her patient. Since the data transfer is moving more securely over the hospital’s local network the doctor and patient are confident that whatever is shared in the room stays there.
Since it only takes a few seconds to start sharing content, the doctor can get right into talking with her patient without wasting time. The time saved goes towards planning the patient’s next stage of treatment and answering questions, making both the doctor’s and her patient’s time more productive.
Seamless Collaboration, Less Time Setting Up
When the appointment is finished, our doctor heads upstairs for a meeting with her department. It’s the third week of the month, so it’s her turn to present.
Before the hospital implemented the Intel Unite solution, she would have had to arrive at the meeting room at least ten minutes early to set up her laptop with the A/V unit. But now she is up and connected to the screen in seconds, giving her additional time to gather her thoughts instead of fiddling with the configurations.
About five minutes into the meeting, the doctor receives a message from a colleague who was unable to make it into the office today but wants to join the meeting. “Great, I’ll add you to the presentation,” the doctor responds, using their team’s video conferencing service to patch the other doctor into the call without causing a significant interruption.
The Next Best Thing to Being in the Room
While the doctor tries to make a point of meeting face-to-face with as many patients as possible, in some cases, her patients are immuno-compromised or infectious. Bedside check-ins in this case mean putting on disposable gloves, masks, and other protective gear. This is gear that must be disposed of and replaced for the next patient. This is both time-consuming and expensive.
