Cisco Transforms Healthcare Delivery Systems with Telehealth Tech

Cisco HealthPresence is a cutting-edge telehealth technology, helping deliver high quality care from a distance in real time. Dr. William A. Kennedy, a board certified pediatric urologist at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, vouches for Cisco technology to effectively provide specialty "care-at-a-distance." He says this technology yields a superior clinical interaction that is equivalent to the traditional in-person visit of the doctor.

Cisco HealthPresence technology is especially helpful for people who may be required to travel at a long distance to reach a healthcare facility. This can become difficult for people who are working, or for children who need an adult to accompany them. With Cisco technology, it is not necessary any longer for kids and families to leave their communities and miss substantial time from school or work to receive high quality specialty care.

Dr. Kennedy says that he has been able to cut down waiting time for patients by running his weekly 'telehealth' clinics. He says from personal experience: "Growing up in the 1970s with a brother being actively treated for metastatic Ewing's sarcoma, I truly came to understand the burden that state-of-the-art medical care could have on a family. The travel to a world-class hospital only 25 miles away was a full-time job for my mother as she oversaw the care of my younger brother through his 5-year chemotherapeutic journey.

"An easy week required only three hospital visits, but most weeks the protocol required five days of on-site treatment, testing and monitoring. Family members and friends rallied to provide transportation for my mom and brother. When no one was available to drive them to Manhattan, the social services shuttle bus, driven by George, picked them up at 7 am, returning anywhere from 6 to 8 at night."

Forty years later the fact remains that pediatric subspecialists are still in short supply across the nation. This is where Cisco's HealthPresence technology is making a difference. The use of this technology is significantly reducing the wait times for patients. Cisco's high definition videoconferencing equipment, combined with the transmission of physical exam details through the use of advanced digital medical instruments, helps achieve a competent clinical interaction comparable with the traditional in-person doctor visits.

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