Evidence submitted by Tandberg (WP 64)
1. EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
1.1 TANDBERG is a leading global provider
of visual communication products to public services in 90 countries
across the world. TANDBERG designs, develops and markets systems
and software for video, voice and data technologies. The company
possesses a particular expertise working with Government agencies
to promote the use of visual communications to provide major benefits
in the delivery of public services. TANDBERG has been at the forefront
of developing visual communications systems for healthcare organisations
across the UK, both in primary and secondary care settings.
1.2 TANDBERG is committed to supporting
the Government's Transformational Government: enabled by technology
strategy, a Cabinet Office initiative led by the e-Government
Unit which aims to deliver public service improvements through
the innovative use of information technology. Visual communications
can play a valuable role in supporting the Government's e-Government
priorities: delivering better public services, reducing burdens
of front line staff and improving the efficiency of service provision.
1.3 In particular, video conferencing technology
offers significant potential benefits for the delivery of greater
efficiencies and performance improvements in the NHS. Fundamentally,
visual communications bring the capacity to share scarce resources—in
this instance, the NHS workforce—and ensure their services
reach the maximum number of people in as effective a way as possible.
1.4 Video conferencing has been transformed
over recent years. Modern systems provide the highest real time
video and sound quality in "face-to-face" communication
over existing broadband infrastructure. Additionally, video conferencing
systems now possess the capability to share presentations and
other computer applications alongside live video, record meetings
for later streaming to desktop PCs, and integrate with existing
collaboration software packages from providers such as Microsoft
and IBM Lotus.
1.5 Our response sets out the role of visual
communications in supporting NHS workforce and service needs and
provides two case studies of services that are already in operation,
in Haringey PCT and Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow.
2. THE ROLE
OF VISUAL
COMMUNICATIONS IN
SUPPORTING NHS WORKFORCE
AND SERVICE
NEEDS
2.1 The applications of visual communications
solutions are relatively well understood. Video brings people
together for meetings without them having to be physically present
in the same location. This improves productivity, saves travel
time and costs, helps meet sustainability targets and allows more
frequent face-to-face contact with colleagues, partners, suppliers
and users. There is much untapped potential for visual communications
as an effective delivery partner across the NHS to help achieve
greater efficiencies in workforce needs and planning.
2.2 On a cross-departmental level, central
government has set out a bold vision for the better use of technology
to deliver public services and policy outcomes that have an impact
on citizens' daily lives. Its vision document, Transformational
Government, sets out the Government's desired policy outcomes
for the use of information technology across all the public services,
including the NHS. Visual communications can be applied to each
of these policy objectives. The policy goals include:
— Delivering better public services
by providing a more personalised approach to end users.
— Encouraging more access to expertise.
— Facilitating faster decision-making
processes.
— Reducing burdens on frontline staff
by giving individuals the tools to be more effective.
— Supporting backoffice functions to
be more efficient and cost-effective.
— Fully utilising technologies which
government has yet to exploit properly.
— Driving the delivery of information
through greater use of telephone, internet, mobile and digital
channels.
— Enabling a step change in the use
of technology to exchange information and transact directly with
citizens and front line staff.
2.3 The Department of Health has also recognised
the potential for visual communications in the recently published
Department of Health White Paper Our health, our care, our say.
The policy paper places an emphasis on the importance of shifting
the delivery of care and treatment away from centralised hospitals
and into the local community. This is an objective that video
communications is well positioned to deliver on. In particular,
the White Paper notes that,
"In future, far more care will be provided
in more local and convenient settings. People want this, and changes
in technology and clinical practice are making it safer and more
feasible."
2.4 The White Paper cites examples of international
best practice where this approach has been supported by the use
of visual communications solutions, such as the TELeHEART programme
for veterans with a high risk of cardiovascular disease in the
USA where video systems have been used to support improved healthcare
outcomes:
"Through a comprehensive approach, with
a strong focus both on helping people to help themselves and use
of remote health technologies, there were significant improvements
in health outcomes and far higher patient satisfaction, as well
as substantial reductions in hospital use—admissions down
66%, bed days of care down 71% and emergency visits down 40%".
2.5 The potential cost-efficiencies and
healthcare improvements which could be gained from this approach
are significant, but the White Paper stresses the need for greater
credible evidence to demonstrate the benefits to individuals,
carers and healthcare professionals. Visual communications can
play a major role in showing that the complementary objectives
set out in Transformational Government and Our health, our care,
our say can be achieved.
2.6 Although the uses of video conferencing
can vary widely, the most common applications and benefits for
health organisations would include:
— Reductions in travel and commensurate
cost savings for both patients and healthcare professionals by
linking primary and secondary care services over a video network.
— The ability for patients and clinicians
to communicate immediately and in real time with specialists from
multiple sites without the need for travel.
— The opportunity to expand the range
of services to a wider patient base across both the primary and
secondary sectors.
— Increases in service capacity as
a result of reduced burdens on frontline staff and services.
— Promoting equitable access to services
for geographically isolated or minority communities, where distance
or language barriers are problematic constraints.
— Higher satisfaction for both healthcare
professionals and patients by increasing ease of access to services
and intra-service communication.
— Improved backoffice communications
between primary and secondary care and strategic health organisations.
3. CASE STUDIES
OF VISUAL
COMMUNICATIONS IN
A HEALTHCARE
ENVIRONMENT
3.1 We have a track record in delivering
in the NHS, and have set out examples of our experience in the
two attached case studies. In each case, success is due to both
the technology used and the research, training and planning that
accompanies its roll-out. To briefly outline:
3.1.1 Yorkhill Hospital, Glasgow, Scotland
TANDBERG technology has been used at Yorkhill
Hospital in Glasgow to link heart specialists with a paediatric
ward in Wishaw General hospital, Lanarkshire. The link is the
first of its kind in the UK, and allows paediatricians to obtain
immediate expert advice from specialist consultants immediately
without the need for travel. Details are included in Appendix
1. [142]
3.1.2 Haringey Primary Care Trust, London
TANDBERG video conference technology is being
used at the Broadwater Farm Health Centre in Haringey to help
ethnic minority communities to access primary care services. Desktop
video conferencing units have been installed in GPs' surgeries
and connected to professional interpreters so that non-English
speaking patients can be effectively treated by their doctors.
Details are included in Appendix 2. 142
3.2 We would welcome the opportunity to
demonstrate, or perhaps organise a visit for the Committee to
see firsthand, the role of video conferencing in these instances.
Tandberg
March 2006
142 Not printed here. Back
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