Guys & St Thomas’ Invests in Polycom Huddle Room Video Solutions

News item: February 28, 2017
Guys and St Thomas Hospital Video Collaboration Room with people

The state-of-the-art Cancer Centre at Guy’s Hospital, that opened in September 2016 as Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital has installed video solutions to enhance the care and treatment service for patients.

Now, with the Video Conferencing technology in place, consultants are able to work more efficiently and meetings are finished quicker and earlier, meaning consultants are able to spend more time with patients.

The IT Architect at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, worked closely with Polycom to implement a new huddle room facility for consultant meetings. The challenge was to design a place that enabled consultants to review patients’ cases in a quality, secure and intimate environment.

 This state-of-the-art new meeting space now enables consultants to review patient files more efficiently in a more relaxed environment; boardroom style spaces were previously used for these types of meetings. As you walk in, the first thing you see is the Polycom RealPresence Centro in the middle of the room.

In the middle of the room, the hospital has installed a Polycom RealPresence Centro Solution, surrounded by a U shape of bespoke desks and technologies for diagnostics and information, microscopes, Imaging, X-rays, and the Cancer Information System, EPR, amongst more. Above are four displays suspended from the ceiling space with one large monitor affixed to the wall. With the RealPresence Centro being used as the main video endpoint to meet with those attending from other locations, the displays are central to the room, and no one in the meeting is missed when in discussions about patient care.

Designed with efficiency and comfort in mind, and as the consultants hold on average 3 to 4 consulting sessions a week, this was a key factor when selecting the right partner. The consultants hold approximately 4 sessions per week, each of which are attended by 30 to 70 different consultants located across the UK, with an average of 20 cases reviewed within each session. The new collaboration solution enables these consultants to attend remotely and share data confidentially, greatly saving time and effort from all parties involved.

“Controlled by a bespoke touch screen, consultants can come in and set up their meeting at the touch of a button, meaning meetings start on time. One added benefit to the system is consultants can interact more during these sessions – previously the set-up would be a classroom style, meaning ‘backs of heads’ were the best that some could see during these sessions.

Now with the huddle format, everyone is engaged in the room and those on the far end can see who is commenting as the facial recognition software zooms in on the end that is talking,”

– Frank Baldesare, IT Architect at Guy’s and St Thomas’. 

In addition to shortening the length of the consultations, video collaboration technology has also enabled the hospital to reduce its travel time and costs, by enabling medical professionals to collaborate effectively and converse as if they are in the same room.

 

 

 

 

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