Healthcare MARKET REPORT
“Any communications business that doesn’t include digital services alongside other traditional
solutions doesn’t deserve to be successful.” Rufus Grig, Chief Strategy Officer - Maintel
Cyber Security
Acronis has warned authorities and private organisations in the UK
and globally of a looming increase in ransomware attacks targeting
private and government hospital systems in the coming weeks
amid the Covid-19 crisis. Raising the concern, Acronis cites a surge
in ransomware detections in Europe by up to seven percent in the
last week of February 2020, followed by a 10 percent increase the
week after.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has brought with it new challenges
and new risks to the business environment and cyberspace is no
exception. As most businesses and individuals are now required to
go digital in a bid to ensure that their operations do not grind to a
halt, they have also become easy targets with healthcare facilities
becoming more vulnerable because the systems that care for
patients and lab work are often linked.” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO
and Founder at Acronis.
care. As a result, in the UK we
see healthcare organisations
at opposite ends of the digital
spectrum. For a Channel that
is also embarking on its own
transformation this can be
challenging.
Rufus Grig said, “Any
communications business that
doesn’t include digital services
alongside other traditional
solutions doesn’t deserve to be
successful. In the healthcare
sector speci cally, there is still
a tremendous need for support
for legacy systems as hospitals
are full of analogue devices.
It’s important to be aware of
the existing need for support
in the context of the digital
transformation going on all
around in the business world.
ere is a huge demand for
>
Rufus Grig, Chief Strategy
O cer at Maintel
CallConnect GP on their laptops
or home computer. ere is also
a need to take data from multiple
clinical systems to allow shared
answering facilities between
surgeries perhaps in a Primary
Care Network who are logged
into several clinical systems.
Call Recording is also
becoming more of a must have
feature as telephone consultations
increase and GPs need to prove
‘who said what’ and protect the
practice from complaints. It can
also be used for sta training.”
Tim Mercer, CEO of Vapour
Cloud added, “We could talk for
hours about COVID-19 related
challenges of course. However,
this was a sector fraught with
challenges – and also rich in
opportunity – before the virus
outbreak.
Looking at health in the
broadest sense – including
GP surgeries and pharmacies
for example, not just NHS
and private hospitals – we see
a general appetite to be more
tech savvy. Yet without a
designated or universal system,
many healthcare providers feel
‘stuck’ when it comes to the
procurement process. Even if a
CCG wants to make a decision
surrounding an upcoming
Tim Mercer, CEO of Vapour Cloud
tech investment, there’s no ‘go
to’ solution or standardised
guidelines. ey’re e ectively
told – ‘go and nd something’.
But which tech should they
choose? And who pays for it?
is contributes to support
di culties too and overall, a real
lack of direction.
Relate this to COVID-19
and you see many healthcare
providers developing individual
coping strategies, particularly
when it comes to tech. With
more leadership I think we’d
have seen a greater uplift in tech
uptake/deployment, quite some
time ago.”
Rufus Grig, Chief Strategy
O cer at Maintel commented
“ is sector is just trying
to survive how to handle
COVID-19 right now. In
steadier times, the health service
is trying to strike a three-way
balance between delivery against
a complex health environment
of an aging population who
are living longer, ever-reducing
funding and a strong expectation
of improvement in the patient
experience – the challenge for
technology is to help with this
balance.”
Dave O’Shaughnessy,
Healthcare Practice Leader
– Avaya EMEA & APAC
commented, “During-
COVID-19 adoption of
Cloud-services has really jumped
like never before. Previously
Healthcare services were
extremely cautious and reluctant,
generally, to consider or adopt
Cloud services for reasons such as
security and reliability. However,
the COVID-19 Pandemic is
changing that as Healthcare
organisations struggle with
business continuity in these
di cult times, where sta are
working remotely, needing to
deliver the services more than
ever, and not be disrupted in any
way. Cloud services such as Avaya
Spaces allows these organisations
to continue communicating and
collaborating despite the remote
workforce being physically
separated.
I believe this COVID-19
Pandemic will also be the
tipping-point for the Healthcare
vertical’s attitude and
consideration of the value and
bene t of Cloud services.”
Going Digital
Built on traditional
infrastructure the healthcare
system has slowly been trying to
digitise itself to enable improved
www.tollring.com
Clinical System Telephony Integration
NEW CallConnect GP update
to manage COVID-19 surge in calls
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WITH
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