Joe Beland

"Unified messaging can be a great money-saver for hospitals," said Joe Beland, product marketing manager at Siemens."Just in the area of collaboration, giving staff the ability to save five minutes per day by improving communications, could result in savings of $100K annually for a typical 250-bed hospital."

According to Beland, there are many cases for deploying unified messaging in a healthcare setting:

Collaborative Diagnosis -- In this example, unified messaging can be used to improve patient services by allowing medical professionals to more easily share and exchange information needed to diagnose and treat a patient.For example, an on-duty nurse in a triage unit might not know how to respond to a voice mail she received requesting medical attention, given a peculiarity she noticed in the patient's medical history.Using Xpressions 470 unified messaging, the nurse can attach the patient's medical records to the voice message and send it to a colleague who is able to review the data and quickly assist with the diagnosis. Remote Access to Information for Diagnosis -- A doctor, located some distance from the office, is waiting for a patient's (PACS) medical image to forward to another doctor who will assist with the diagnosis (or perhaps make diagnosis while he/she is out of the office).Siemens' Xpressions 470 unified messaging application can page the doctor to let him know when the PACS image arrives in his unified inbox.He can then dial into his Xpressions mailbox from a nearby phone and forward to the co-diagnosing doctor information on where to retrieve and review the images. Instant Message Notification -- A patient is ready for surgery, but the doctor is awaiting confirmation from the insurance company regarding coverage for procedures.Or, perhaps the doctor is waiting for some patient information to be delivered before the patient can be pre-medicated.