Group deploys Office 365 to integrate healthcare delivery and improve patient experience while ensuring highest standards for security and privacy are maintained
SINGAPORE – 1 October 2015 – Microsoft Singapore and Fullerton Healthcare Group (Fullerton Healthcare), Asia’s leading provider of integrated enterprise healthcare services, yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to bring together their respective capabilities and resources, with the goal of advancing the delivery of healthcare and improving the overall patient experience through technology and innovation.
Headquartered in Singapore, Fullerton Healthcare currently operates more than 180 fully-owned medical clinics in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and Australia, and works with over 25,000 companies to provide quality healthcare solutions to eight million people in the region. As a result of recent geographic expansion, brought about by organic growth and a series of mergers and acquisitions, Fullerton Healthcare was looking for an enterprise IT solution that can reduce complexity and enable staff across the region to communicate and work more efficiently and effectively.
“We are delighted to be working with Microsoft. Technology is a strategic driver for Fullerton Healthcare and we will continue to invest in technology to ensure the patient and client experience is easier, quicker and better,” said Ted Minkinow, Chief Information Officer, Fullerton Healthcare Group. “By leveraging the world’s most secure and advanced technology, we are able to extend our best-in-class healthcare services throughout Asia and deliver on our mission to transform healthcare standards in the region, and make quality healthcare accessible and affordable to all.”
In addition, Microsoft Singapore announced that Fullerton Healthcare, following detailed technical reviews and comparisons, will be deploying the Office 365 cloud-based productivity suite for its global operations. The deployment will enable Fullerton Healthcare to integrate healthcare delivery across its medical network and improve patient experience while ensuring that the highest standards for security and privacy are maintained.
The migration to Office 365 Enterprise, which is expected to take 60 days, will enable the organisation to integrate its back-end IT operations and further improve its front-end service delivery, through the use of enterprise-grade productivity solutions such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Skype for Business, with unlimited cloud storage on OneDrive for Business, Yammer for enterprise social collaboration, and SharePoint Online for intranet collaboration.
With OneDrive for Business, Fullerton Healthcare employees will be able to access shared documents and care plans from any device, regardless of their physical location. In addition, care team members will also be able share information and collaborate on documents using SharePoint Online, which enables them to quickly access patient notes taken by another caregiver in a secure manner.
Front-end patient experience will also be improved through the provision of virtual health care, made possible by Skype for Business. Rather than meeting patients only when they are experiencing symptoms, care team members can proactively engage with patients through telehealth capabilities enabled by Skype for Business, communicating with them via instant messaging (IM), audio and video calls, online meetings and sharing to facilitate the provision of care in a quick and efficient manner.
“Microsoft appreciates the diverse demands that healthcare providers face in Asia Pacific, and is committed to empowering health organisations to improve collaboration among caregivers and their patients, speed up access to actionable information, and gain insights to using technology that is as powerful as it is familiar,” said Gabe Rijpma, Senior Director, Health and Social Services, Microsoft Asia. “We are delighted to be partnering with Fullerton Healthcare to realise a healthier future by maximising the potential of every care touch point while delivering proactive, personalised and secure care.”
As digitisation of health information continues to soar, a key consideration for healthcare organisations when investing in a cloud service is the assurance that their customer data is safe, the privacy of the data is protected, and that they will have ownership and control over their data. With this trust in place, healthcare organisations such as Fullerton Healthcare will be empowered to provide eHealth experiences with robust security for today’s healthcare consumer.
This is why the security and privacy of patient information, such as electronic health records, digital images, e-prescriptions, and patient admission and scheduling, is of paramount importance to the healthcare industry. Office 365 employs cutting-edge security practices with five layers of security and proactive monitoring which help keep customers’ data safe, as Microsoft believes in empowering health organisations around the world to use technology in a way that patients can trust.
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