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Firm introduces unified concept to aid telemedicine

By Kenechukwu Ezeonyejiaku
03 June 2015   |   11:25 pm
Getting quality healthcare through access to expert consultations in the hinterlands has been the major cause of preventable deaths recorded in the most Nigerian hospitals.
Poly

Deputy General Manager, East & West Africa, FVC, Vikas Verma (right); General Manager, Marketing, Dharmendra Parmar; Regional Sales Director- Saudi Arabia, Levant & North Africa, Polycom, Chris Prowse and Channels Regional Sales Manager, FVC, Davidson Ugen during the Polycom’s West African Partners Conference held in Lagos last week

Getting quality healthcare through access to expert consultations in the hinterlands has been the major cause of preventable deaths recorded in the most Nigerian hospitals.

Furthermore, billions in naira are yearly lost to foreign countries in the form of medical tourism, while the services of these foreign hospitals can be accessed without one risking travelling there, while saving huge money at the same time.

To mitigate these factors plaguing the health sector and other sectors of the economy, Polycom, a multinational corporation that develops video, voice and content collaboration and communication technology, while helping organisations unleash the power of human collaboration no matter how dispersed the team is, have entered Nigerian market to facilitate lifelike and productive collaboration within industries.

The service which also is also as beneficial to other sectors of the economy as it is to the health sector eliminates the challenges of distance occasioned by the vast nature of the country, coupled with the infrastructural decay in the transportation sector to aid human collaboration within organizations, while aiding a seamless performance and productive collaboration in organizations and service industry in the country.

Speaking recently in Lagos at the West African Partners Conference hosted by FVC, Polycom’s authorised Value Added Distributor (VAD) and training Partner in the Middle East and Africa region, a conference which is the last leg of a six country partner road show that covered United Arab Emirate (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Kenya, Egypt and Nigeria, the Regional Sales Director- Saudi Arabia, Levant and North Africa, Chris Prowse, said that there are many reasons why eight of the top 10 hospitals and the top ten pharmaceutical companies worldwide are Polycom customers.

Pointing out that telemedicine is used all over the world irrespective of how developed or otherwise any country is to get to remote places, islands and even in cruise ships, he noted that healthcare organizations the world over are turning to Polycom video collaboration solutions to improve care and reduce cost.

According to him, “Collaborative healthcare solutions from Polycom enable patient centered care, multi-disciplinary team support, reduction of unnecessary re-hospitalizations, and collaboration across the entire healthcare team independent of physical barriers.”

Prowse added that today’s healthcare model requires prevention and wellness programs, and easy access to expert consultations no matter where or when the need arises. “Polycom video collaboration solutions enable video collaboration across the healthcare community to support patient centered care, remote consultations, case management, multi-disciplinary teams and collaboration independent of geographic location,” he said.

The Regional Sales boss further stressed that Polycom solutions offer the flexibility to meet and collaborate with colleagues, partners, and customers in any environment―immersive theater, conference room, work office, home office, or on-the-go.

He noted that the service would be of immense benefit to the country, pointing out that the need to connect the two capitals of the country (Political and Commercial), it’s vast nature, which is further made difficult to access as a result of bad road network offers good opportunity for the deployment of the solution.

In his words: “Nigeria is one of those countries where all the requirements for deploying unified communications come together beautifully.

Some of those reasons are positive while some of them are negative reasons. One of them is that the country is a very large country and being able to communicate across all the country is important, but it is not easy to travel around.

The road infrastructure does not allow you to go easily from one city to another; getting to the airport is not an easy experience and flying is not always a great option.

“The fact that you effectively have two capitals- one in Lagos and one in Abuja means that you have high amount of communication required between the two important sectors. You do have security issues which are not something to desire towards travel and of course, the country has a fast growing economy which means that people within the country need to talk, obviously they will need to talk outside the country; they need to hook up with partners within the continent and other parts of the world. “

And all of these come together and say, you know what? In order to be able to do all the things that people want to do, you need time.

And in order to get this time, you need a Unified Communication because it gives you back some time you can never get by travelling.” Prowse disclosed that Polycom solutions deliver the same high-quality collaboration experience as working together on-site in the same conference room.

He stated that the solution which is powered by the RealPresence Platform delivers a superb collaboration experience, regardless of network, carrier, protocol, application, or device. Prowse further said that apart from health sector being the largest users of the service worldwide, education comes second.

He added that Polycom provides rich, interactive visual solutions that improve all facets of education—from student administration to course development, and curriculum delivery to content management.

Meanwhile, the Partners’ Conference held yearly according to General Manager, Marketing, FVC, Dharmendra Parmar gives FVC’s Polycom partners the opportunity to meet the senior management from Polycom, get a preview of new products and network with fellow partners, sharing best practices and new business development strategies. “Nigeria is an exciting market for us with a lot of enterprise opportunities for unified communications.

Taking our popular Polycom Partner event closer to markets like Nigeria gives us the opportunity to share our strategies with more of our local partners and the opportunity to talk to their customers and share some of the exciting new technologies first hand.

“By 2017, 58 per cent of network traffic is forecasted to be video. As the largest provider of visual communication solutions in the region, FVC is committed to developing business in Nigeria and has increased its investment locally with enhanced local presence and skilled resources,” he said

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