Caregivers Virtual for Visual Collaboration

Feb. 18, 2012 - PRLog -- Walnut Creek, CA February 8, 2012—Astound Technologies, LLC, today announced they will be exhibiting the Virtual Specialist at HIMSS 2012, February 21-24 at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas.

Every healthcare professional agrees effective communication, collaboration and coordination are keys for improving patient outcomes. The Virtual Specialist solves a major problem for hospital Administrators, CMIOs and CIOs, with a Microsoft Lync 2010 solution that enables caregivers to spontaneously communicate and collaborate, regardless of their location, constant movement, and hectic schedules; see one another, the patient, and interact with EMRs and live diagnostic data. With features designed exclusively for healthcare’s busy communication environment, the Virtual Specialist has the unique ability to seamlessly switch and route visual collaboration calls between PCs like phone calls throughout a single hospital, a health system or a medical region simultaneously building an eHealth network saving time, eliminating travel, lowering costs and improving outcomes.

“For caregivers visually collaborating with timely information has always been critical in patient care and as reimbursements move from service to performance models it has become critical to the hospital’s bottom-line. The Virtual Specialist simplifies real-time information sharing over distance utilizing Windows 7 PCs and Microsoft Lync 2010 while providing a platform for health organizations to improve operational efficiencies, speed innovations, minimize risk, maximize investments in Unified Communications and deliver high quality care” states Skip Rodenbush, Astound’s Co-Founder and CMO.




Powered by an HP Z Series Workstation running Astound GPower Video ACD software, interoperating with Lync, the Virtual Specialist monitors, switches and connects calls over data networks and can economically scale to support 100s of endpoints. Its unique Queue-Hunt feature quickly locates and connects caregivers optimizing networks by minimizing bandwidth requirements.

“We’ve applied the principles of processing telephone calls to processing video collaboration calls with a focus on healthcare,” states Jack Gaither, Astound Technologies Founder and CEO. “Until now video collaboration was done from expensive videoconferencing rooms or roll-about carts. The Virtual Specialist makes video collaboration a reality from any Windows 7 device and our new Cloud offering, which interoperates with Microsoft Office 365, enables quick adaptation without using capital funds so any size medical facility from major medical center to individual practice can immediately start reaping the benefits”.  

For HIMSS attendees the Virtual Specialist will be demonstrated in HPs Healthcare Pavilion Booth 3845 at the Wireless Networking exhibit.

About Astound Technologies, LLC
Astound Technologies is a Microsoft Certified Partner based in Walnut Creek, CA, specializing in virtual collaboration management software and a repeat winner of the Malcolm Baldrige Award. Its flagship eHealth solution, The Virtual Specialist, incorporates an automatic video call distributor (AVCD) software switch that routes video collaboration calls between any PC device operating Windows 7 enabling caregivers and physicians to appear where they’re needed― virtually and on demand. Astound is committed to improving care and slashing costs by making visual collaboration and telemedicine commonplace from daycare to eldercare and everywhere in between. For more information visit www.thevirtualspecialist.com