Around the world, health systems are rapidly deploying new care delivery methods. Balancing the increased volume of patient care with the need to minimize physical contact between clinicians and patients, many hospitals and clinics are turning to telehealth.
With telehealth, healthcare providers can scale virtual consultations and remote work from home, allowing doctors to see more patients while reducing physical contact.
Doctors in Atlanta, Georgia will be able to serve more patients virtually because of a generous donation by N3, a Cisco US Commercial Small Business sales operation team.
Typically, N3 uses the Cisco DX80 video equipment in their office to connect virtually with thousands of small business customers and partners a day. But, with their two thousand Atlanta-based employees working remotely, N3’s equipment was sitting idle in their headquarters. After hearing that we at Cisco are collecting video devices from our offices, sanitizing them and deploying them in hospitals, N3 was inspired to make a massive donation of their own. They collected seventy-eight DX80 devices from their office and donated them to a local healthcare system, where they could be used directly by doctors and healthcare professionals on the front lines.
The health system, whose virtual patient visits had skyrocketed from zero just a few weeks ago to more than five thousand a week as a result of the current health climate, gladly accepted the donation to manage the increased volume of appointments and help keep doctors and healthcare staff safe.
“As a global partner for Cisco, and with our teams working from home, a lot of equipment was going unused,” said Shannon Copeland, N3 Chief Operating Officer. “When we heard Cisco was donating to hospitals, their example was inspiring to us – it’s exactly what’s needed in this time.”
Within hours of their decision, N3 was able to connect with health system’s IT team in charge of command center operations and Cisco to develop a rapid response plan. The very next day, volunteers from the health system and Cisco showed up at the N3 office with a moving truck, ready to transport and install the devices.
For us, it was important to not only get the devices up and running quickly, but also ensure that the doctors received the support they needed to comfortably adopt the new technology for virtual triage and consultations.
A huge thank you to N3 and to healthcare professionals for keeping us safe during this unprecedented time.
Do you have unused equipment you’d like to donate to healthcare professionals? Or are you a healthcare organization in need of Cisco equipment?
Learn how we’re facilitating donations like N3’s through the
Cisco Pandemic Brokerage Program
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