Categories: Healthcare

Delivering Superior Patient Engagement: NEC UNIVERGE BLUE Introduces Key EHR Integrations within UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE

Posted by Adam Uthe on Posted in Cloud, Healthcare, Security

NEC is excited to announce new integrations between UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE and the industry’s top EHR (electronic health records) platforms, including Epic, Cerner, and MEDITECH. These integrations empower healthcare providers to streamline patient communication and optimize employee workflows, allowing them to focus on providing superior care while giving patients better access to critical information.

Improved Patient Communication and Access to Information
One of the key benefits of UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE’s healthcare integrations is the improved patient-provider communication experience. By connecting ENGAGE with leading EHR platforms, healthcare professionals can access patient data and history in real-time during routine interactions. This means more personalized and informed patient conversations, resulting in better care outcomes and patient satisfaction.

Patients also gain easier access to their medical information, appointment scheduling, and test results. This enhanced accessibility fosters greater patient engagement and empowers individuals to actively participate in their own care.

Enhancing Efficiency and Workflow Automation
Healthcare professionals face numerous challenges daily, from managing patient inquiries to coordinating care across different departments. These new healthcare integrations help bridge the gap between ENGAGE and leading electronic healthcare records (EHRs) organizations, enabling seamless data exchange and workflow automation.

Through these integrations, time-consuming manual processes are automated, allowing healthcare providers to optimize their workflows for employees. The automation not only cuts costs, it also saves valuable time and reduces the risk of errors associated with manual data entry, ensuring accurate and up-to-date patient information across all platforms.

Ensuring HIPAA Compliance and Data Security
Security and compliance are of utmost importance in the healthcare industry. Fortunately, UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE adheres to strict data protection regulations and industry-best practices, ensuring that patient information remains secure and confidential throughout the communication process. Any integration with Epic, Cerner, or MEDITECH’s EHRs maintains stringent data security standards, facilitating seamless and protected data exchange between systems.

ENGAGE’s new healthcare integrations mark a significant step forward in NEC’s commitment to improving healthcare outcomes and patient experiences for all providers. To learn more about how UNIVERGE BLUE ENGAGE can transform any healthcare organization, visit our website or contact an authorized NEC representative directly.

Biometrics and Digital IDs in Healthcare: Enhancing Security, Streamlining Operations, and Improving Patient Experience

Posted by Kevin Ells on Posted in Biometrics, Digital ID, Healthcare Tagged , , ,

Introduction

Welcome to our comprehensive guide on Biometrics and Digital IDs in healthcare. This post explores the transformative role of biometric technology and digital IDs in revolutionizing the healthcare sector. These technologies are reshaping the healthcare landscape by enhancing patient identification, improving data security, streamlining administrative operations, and enabling secure digital identity verification.

The Power of Digital IDs in Healthcare

Digital IDs play a vital role in the healthcare sector, offering numerous benefits:

Secure Digital Identity Verification

Digital IDs provide a secure and reliable method to verify an individual’s identity in healthcare settings. By utilizing biometric authentication methods such as facial recognition, fingerprints, or iris scans, digital IDs offer a robust and convenient way to authenticate patients and healthcare professionals. This ensures that only authorized individuals can access sensitive medical records, protecting patient privacy and data integrity.

Streamlined Operations and Patient Experience

Digital IDs streamline administrative operations in healthcare facilities by simplifying patient check-in procedures. Patients can quickly verify their identity using their digital ID, reducing paperwork and administrative burdens. This improves the efficiency of healthcare providers, allowing them to focus more on delivering quality patient care.

Enhanced Data Security

The digitization of health records has led to an increased need for robust data security measures. Digital IDs provide an extra layer of security, ensuring that only authorized personnel can access and modify sensitive patient data. This helps mitigate the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access, safeguarding patients’ personal information.

Biometrics and Digital IDs in Action: NEC’s Role and Case Studies

NEC, a global leader in biometric technology and digital IDs, is at the forefront of driving innovation in healthcare. Their advanced solutions, such as facial recognition technology (NeoFace®), transform patient identification and data security in healthcare facilities worldwide.

One exemplary case study highlighting the impact of digital IDs is the implementation of NEC’s technology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. The hospital significantly improved patient safety and satisfaction by leveraging biometric authentication, ensuring accurate identification and data privacy.

Additionally, healthcare organizations worldwide are exploring the potential of digital IDs in revolutionizing patient access to healthcare services. For example, some countries have implemented digital health passports, allowing individuals to securely access their health records and share relevant information with healthcare providers, all within a secure digital ID framework.

Challenges and Future Trends

While the benefits of digital IDs in healthcare are significant, several challenges must be addressed. Privacy concerns, interoperability of systems, and ensuring regulatory compliance are among the key challenges healthcare organizations face in adopting digital ID solutions.

However, the future of digital IDs in healthcare is promising. As technology advances, we can expect the integration of biometric wearables, blockchain-based digital IDs, and AI-enabled predictive healthcare. These advancements will further enhance digital ID solutions’ reliability, security, and convenience in healthcare settings.

Conclusion and Link to the Series

Digital IDs and biometric authentication are revolutionizing patient identification, data security, and digital identity verification in healthcare. By streamlining operations, enhancing data security, and ensuring accurate patient identification, these technologies are driving improved patient experiences and better healthcare outcomes.

As we progress in our series, we will delve deeper into the privacy and security concerns surrounding using digital IDs and biometric authentication in retail. Understanding and addressing these concerns are vital for these technologies’ successful and ethical implementation.

Call to Action

Stay tuned for our next chapter, exploring "Biometrics and Digital IDs in Retail – Enhancing Security, Streamlining Transactions, and Revolutionizing the Shopping Experience." We encourage you to share your thoughts, insights, and questions on the transformative power of digital IDs in healthcare. Let us continue this intriguing conversation in the comments section below!

References/Resources

Throughout this series, we draw upon information from reputable sources, industry research, and the expertise of companies like NEC, a global leader in advanced biometric solutions and digital identity technologies. For further exploration, we recommend visiting NEC’s website (https://nectoday.com/) for insightful articles, case studies, and updates on the latest Digital ID and biometric authentication advancements.

All Chapters –

How Forerunner Technologies has Tackled Customer Issues using UNIVERGE BLUE

Posted by Joe Perc on Posted in Cloud, Contact Center, Healthcare, Hospitality, Servers and Storage, Unified Communications Tagged , , , , ,

NEC UNIVERGE BLUE Channel Partner Forerunner Technologies weighs in on the value of using UNIVERGE BLUE to help customers transition to a modern workplace.

The partnership between Forerunner Technologies and NEC dates back many years, but it has taken on a new dynamic in recent times. NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE offers Forerunner Technologies a powerful solution for its clients as they navigate the challenges of a rapidly evolving business environment.

UNIVERGE BLUE is an easy-to-use, cloud-based communications platform that helps businesses manage communications and collaboration between employees. For Forerunner Technologies, the UNIVERGE BLUE platform creates a number of promising opportunities, allowing communications consultants to offer robust solutions to some of their customers’ biggest challenges.

The move to a hybrid workplace

With COVID-19 disrupting the corporate world, many companies were forced to adopt a hybrid workplace. Instead of every employee working on-premises, people were suddenly splitting time between working from home and being in the office. Thanks to UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT, Forerunner Technologies was able to provide a solution for all its customers struggling with this new way of working. It allowed them to retain seamless communication and connectivity throughout their enterprises without letting the transition disrupt productivity.

As the restrictions have eased off, Forerunner Technologies identified that there is still an appetite for hybrid working in the modern world. A lot of their customers are keen to hire talent that either works remotely or semi-remotely. UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT provides the perfect platform to make this easier than ever.

Letting workers adopt their preferred technologies

The new generation of workers has specific demands when it comes to the technologies they want to use at work. Some of them want to use their mobile device to work, others a tablet, and some still prefer their laptop. Thanks to UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT, Forerunner has been able to provide a platform that lets its customers’ employees adopt their preferred technologies.

Individuals are now able to work in a way that suits them the best. As a result, this translates into more productivity for companies. According to UC Today, 75% of Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) users experienced heightened productivity. There’s no doubt in the mind of Forerunner Technologies that this is thanks to the flexibility that a system like UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT provides.

LECs are no longer mandated to maintain copper services

The local exchange carriers (LECs) are no longer mandated by the FCC to maintain copper services. This has caused a huge disruption! Forerunner Technologies has seen many of its customers receive short notice periods from LECs stating that certain services will be terminated. Likewise, many service providers have hiked up the prices of legacy telephone lines to egregious amounts. As a result, the only solution is to switch these services to hosted solutions. More decision-makers at top companies are looking for platforms like UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT to help them navigate this transition.

UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT has allowed Forerunner to provide monthly subscription packages that help clients gain control of their bills and clearly understand how much everything costs. When Forerunner can save money providing this service, it will ultimately mean that the service can be sold to customers at a more affordable price point.

Overall, Forerunner has seen savings between 15-35% for most customers. UNIVERGE BLUE CONNECT has also given them an easy way to allow customers to pay for what they need.

Forerunner Technologies is thrilled with its partnership with NEC. This cloud-based system has transformed the services it can provide for customers as a premier national communications consultant for enterprises and SMBs. In a world driven by the concept of hybrid working, UNIVERGE BLUE Cloud Services is allowing Forerunner to give customers a steppingstone toward a cloud-based work environment. This helps customers offer better working environments for employees, catering to their specific needs. It opens up the talent pool and lets them grow as companies.

UNIVERGE BLUE offers a product that delivers a better all-around experience for everyone. Customers enjoy monthly savings while also receiving a better way of communicating and staying connected.

For more information on NEC’s UNIVERGE BLUE and its capabilities for your business, visit the UNIVERGE BLUE website.

10 Strategic Smart Enterprise Drivers for 2023

Posted by Josh Loinette on Posted in Cloud, Contact Center, Enterprise, Healthcare, Hospitality, Servers and Storage, Unified Communications Tagged , , ,

Businesses are currently weighing the impact of rapidly changing economic conditions, as well as disruptions in supply chains, and energy sourcing. Digital Transformation is recreating business models, changing the way customers and employees interact and altering entire industries. Making sense of such disruptive changes has never been so important in order to transform smartly instead of being left behind.

As an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) leader with over 120 years of expertise and experience, NEC is sharing its views on leading and emerging trends and technologies to help your Smart Enterprise anchor its strategic investments. Explore NEC’s Top 10 Strategic Drivers and discover how to navigate through the developments to simplify your organization, realize workforce efficiencies, deliver superior customer services, and gain a competitive advantage.

Digital Transformation
Digital Transformation is key for enterprises to enrich their operations with innovative solutions that optimize business practices, drive workforce engagement, and create a competitive edge. Digital adoption and automation are key to operational excellence and indispensable for organizations to survive. Equipment, functions and processes becoming more and more software driven, makes them more responsive to changing requirements.

Ubiquitous Connectedness
Organizations are capitalizing on mobility solutions that enable employees to work from just about anywhere, at any given time, whether on-site, at home, between appointments, or while traveling. Technology ensures they remain fully integrated with their organizations, colleagues and customers. Work/life balance is enriched by the power of the smart-phone, serving both business and private communications.

Smart, Collaborative Workspaces
The traditional office is shrinking and working from home is fully accepted. With hybrid work being the new normal workstyle, tools that support a flexible, open and agile way of working, like Unified Communications & Collaboration (UC&C), are a mandatory part of running a successful business. Remote workers need to feel engaged and included in company culture. At the same time, Smart enterprises must adopt workplace management solutions that create environments for maximizing not only employee productivity and well-being, but also workplace safety and efficiency as some workers return to the office. Automated reservation and touchless check-in allow both workers and visitors to quickly and safely use office space as often as needed.

Driving Engagement
Companies are pushing hard to deliver connected Customer Experiences (CX) across media, channels, processes, and departments – making contact easy and pleasant, lowering thresholds, presenting options most relevant to the customer, and ensuring swift response to queries. Smart enterprises reinvent their customer engagement models to deliver customers a distinctive, personalized experience and ensure a long-lasting relationship.

The Return Of Cost Consciousness
Until recently businesses were predominantly focused on post-pandemic growth. Now, cost reduction and optimization will play a more prominent role in decision making in 2023. Rising interest rates and volatile labor, materials, and energy prices are forcing enterprises to revisit their balance sheets and cut costs by optimizing out of pocket spendings such as IT infrastructure and office space. Businesses that adopt pay-per-use and flexible models will be able to reduce upfront costs and pay only for what is currently needed, while also giving themselves the flexibility for future expansion. Customers will benefit from easier financial management and predictable overall monthly costs. Smart enterprises will embrace the cost-effectiveness and flexibility of month-to-month contracts with the flexibility to scale up or down as needed.

Cloud-Centric Optimization
Cloud computing has revolutionized IT and software delivery. Applications running in the cloud make it incredibly easy for users to signup, access, and draw on solutions available on demand and within minutes. Cloud-based deployments consequently adopt new functionality much faster and more easily than their on-premises counterparts, with new applications driving rapid innovation.

Securing The Data-Driven Enterprise
The power of capturing, processing, and analyzing data offers tremendous opportunities to drive better business intelligence, product development, and customer service. Real-time business processes and workflows also require swift retrieval of data at the moment of need. As data sets grow, storage solutions need to become more flexible and scalable as organizations find it increasingly complex to store, protect, and manage all collected information.

Business Resilience And Continuity
Today’s enterprises depend on reliable access to applications, information, and people to persistently operate smartly and compete effectively. This requires a robust communications and IT infrastructure capable of providing always-on availability that can also self-heal should potential service disruptions occur. Navigating these disruptions calls for a more holistic and proactive strategy with respect to sourcing and securing resources across a variety of key areas.

Extended Reality
Analytics tools have historically been focused on descriptive outcomes, but now their applications are shifting towards predicting future events and behavior and recommending how to react to outcomes. In 2023, AI tools will become widely available through cloud platforms and open-source software. Businesses will ramp up their usage to streamline efficiency for the organization and achieve new levels of engagement, drawing on elements such as emotion recognition and behavior analysis.

Smart, Sustainable Society
Important steps are being made towards building smarter societies – where information and communications technologies ensure energy efficiency, sustainable economic development, safety and security, along with wise management of natural resources. Connected processes and collaboration will save time and reduce costs, scope, and impact of physical travel and transportation. Digital technologies will support the incorporation of circular economy principles into businesses and society, facilitating the redesign of products and value chains.

By embracing Digital Transformation and enabling advanced approaches to how Communications and IT services are delivered and managed, NEC provides new ways for Smart Enterprises to thrive and grow.

To learn more, visit https://www.necam.com/.

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How Today’s Touchless Technology Gives Customers Options and Control

Posted by Allen Ganz on Posted in Biometrics, Customer Experience, Government, Healthcare, Hospitality, Retail, Security Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Creating a digital profile streamlines online shopping in significant ways. The convenience promotes future orders and customer loyalty. Imagine how delightful it will be when brick and mortar stores enable the popular option for in-person shopping. Today, creating a Digital ID is possible with NEC’s I:Delight platform.

For example, when a shopper saves their preferences and payment information to a personal profile accessible from their mobile device and provides authorization with rapid and accurate facial recognition, stored customer loyalty information can be instantly applied. Thus, empowering customers to control their digital data and how it is used, while their customer experience is enhanced with fewer touches and less risk.

All of this can be achieved with NEC I:Delight, a highly secure and scalable Digital ID management platform. Using NEC’s award-winning face recognition algorithms, this robust, cloud-native platform streamlines ordering and payment at quick service restaurants; facilitates check-in at next-generation hotels; and provides expedited entry and payments at entertainment venues and stadiums.

NEC I:Delight also enables touchless passenger checkpoints from curb-to-gate at airports, provides streamlined access to office buildings, and verifies patients and authorizes staff at healthcare facilities. The platform is interoperable, scalable and can be used by many industries to provide long-term value, transforming the customer experience.

Star Alliance, the world’s largest airline alliance, which includes a coalition of 26 member airlines, uses NEC I:Delight to power its growing biometric passenger processes and modernize its entire travel ecosystem. In addition to curb-to-gate verification, passengers who opt-in through the Star Biometrics app will be able to use their Digital ID for VIP lounge access, wayfinding, airport purchases, transportation fares, hotel check-in, attraction passes and more. All without showing a boarding pass or opening their wallet.

With NEC I:Delight, the customer maintains control of their Digital ID and its uses. Customers can change profile settings as needed and opt-out just as easily.

For more detail check out this three-page preview our whitepaper that provides more in-depth information about NEC’s Digital ID platform.

Click here to learn more or fill out the form below to download the entire whitepaper.

See how Digital IDs can work for you. Take a guided virtual tour and discover the frictionless, touchless capabilities of I:Delight by visiting our Virtual Customer Experience Center.