Originally published 4/20/2016
Written by: Jason Goecke (General Manager- Collaboration Technology, Cisco)
It is difficult and frightening to deal with a serious illness or injury, so unless you’re welcoming a new bundle of joy, one of the last places I imagine any of us would want to be is at a hospital. As fast-paced and connected as our society is, healthcare has not always kept up with the pace of technology in regards to administrative services, asset tracking and patient care journey.
Some of you may ask – how does tracking a hospital’s physical assets improve the quality of patient care? Honestly, the question is not just how, but how much. A great example of this idea coming to life is Tagnos, a company with a robust software suite that is designed to improve the patient care experience and as a result, healthcare facility productivity and bottom lines.
Before we jump into exactly what Tagnos can do, it is important to understand the inspiration behind the platform. After a scare where his father went missing in a hospital for more than two hours following his transfer from a patient room to a treatment room, Tagnos CEO Neeraj Bhavani was motivated to create a solution.
So how does Tagnos solve problems like the one Bhavani encountered? As my colleague Rajesh Mani pointed out in a very real example, the integration of the Cisco Spark and Tagnos platforms creates a communication loop that keeps everyone apprised of the status of a patient’s care, an OR room’s availability – practically any facet of information Tagnos can track.
Tagnos uses Cisco Spark APIs to create patient-specific Spark rooms for hospital staff, empowering them with real-time collaboration between care providers to comment on patient status. In these Spark rooms, nurses can message, voice and video chat to provide doctors with an update on a patient’s reaction to medication. A hospital administrator can share the most up-to-date report on ER wait times with his management team. Tagnos also uses Tropo APIs to automate outbound notifications to care providers via SMS where they can join the created Spark room. After carefully analyzing specific department needs in healthcare facilities, Tagnos is able to create customized solutions that assist in improving patient care and as a result, economic benefits for the facilities.
Through implementation of different Tagnos’ software solutions, forward-thinking healthcare facilities can track on-site patient movements and medical equipment, capture workflow, interaction and benchmark data for enriched analysis and much more. Whether it’s waiting for hours in an emergency room, fractured communication between different medical teams, or uncertainty around patient bed availability – Tagnos technology has led to marked improvement in patient flow and satisfaction, facility efficiency and revenue.
Tagnos is one of the success stories from the Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence (Cisco EIR) corporate venturing and startup incubation program. Providing product-focused entrepreneurs with the opportunity to build relationships with Cisco, the program has been the starting point for several “big ideas” steeped in Big Data, deep learning and of course, the Internet of Everything. And leaders like Neeraj who have the imagination to use our Spark collaboration platform to enable new vertical applications in various lines of business are exactly what we’re looking for.
It is an exciting testimony to the possibilities that we see from startups in the Cisco EIR program, especially to someone like me who has seen a lot in the 20 years I’ve worked in this industry. I consider myself a geek. I still code. Many of you know I used to lead Tropo and as I’ve touched on before, the power of simple and open APIs to accelerate workflows, improve business processes and ultimately deepen user-engagement – the core values Tropo was built on – is still mind-blowing. My team is focused on providing developers with a delightful experience through open APIs that are easy-to-use, world-class support available 24/7 and powerful platforms to innovate on. We want to provide developers the freedom to create new and customized integrations and applications built off the Cisco Spark platform to address customer needs across industries.
By our estimates, there is a $106 billion value at stake in connected healthcare and patient monitoring by 2022. And yes, my geek-mind is in overdrive. Because realizations like this fuel levels of development, creativity and innovation that create the real, live tangible solutions we’ve all imagined and are now coming to life.
Tagnos is disrupting the healthcare industry in ways that benefit so many and more disrupters are needed as we seek more entrepreneurial and startups candidates for our next Cisco Entrepreneur’s in Residence leaders. Learn more about program FAQs here and more details on the “Tagnos Touch” in healthcare.