Glowpoint, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: GLOW), a provider of cloud-based managed services for telepresence, video conferencing and collaboration, today announced that Guardian 24/7, a health care provider for high-profile executives, has selected Glowpoint's video managed services for providing remote diagnosis and patient collaboration using high-quality video conferencing. Guardian 24/7 will be using Glowpoint's services to augment their current device and software solution offerings, provided by AMD Global Telemedicine, the world's leading supplier of medical technology for telemedicine.
Guardian 24/7, which was formed to provide presidential-level health care to private-sector clients, builds personal "medical facilities" at client's home, office and other designated locations, which can even include planes or yachts. Rather than traveling to a public hospital facility, or even to a private clinic, Guardian patients can be remotely diagnosed from their in-home, pre-positioned medical ReadyRoom™, with clinical diagnostic and real-time imaging capability through live video conferencing equipment and connections for direct communications with the world's most high-profile doctors.
Guardian 24/7's doctors use products and software solutions from AMD Global Telemedicine in conjunction with Glowpoint's video managed services to provide the same level of service that is given to the President and Vice President of the United States, their families and other senior executive branch officials. The AMD telemedicine peripherals used by Guardian 24/7 make it possible for a doctor to diagnosis many conditions as effectively as if they were in the same room, saving hours of time and anxiety for routine medical needs – and possibly saving a life in an emergency situation.
Video conferencing is currently used in about 20% to 30% of the doctor patient communications for Guardian and will play a more important role as the company plans to roll-out a more economical "remote medical facility" where remote video communications will likely play an even bigger role for bringing high-profile medical care to a broader market. "We selected Glowpoint's service to enable time-pressed individuals to 'visit' our doctors from wherever they are in the world by accessing their personal 'ReadyRoom™'. As part of the premium, direct access service, our patients can utilize video conferencing technology to provide face-to-face communications with their doctors, which also allows the doctor the benefit of direct visual diagnosis," said Dr. Rob Darling, Chief Medical Officer and Founding Principal of Guardian 24/7.
Glowpoint vice president of marketing, Jonathan Brust, said, "We are very excited to support Guardian's unique application of video. Guardian's medical team includes some of the world's most premier physicians, some of whom provided medical services for the President of the United States and other prominent politicians and business executives. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to support them as they look to bring the same high-level attention and care to more and more people in an effective way."
The Home Telehealth and Remote Patient Monitoring market is currently close to a $5.6 billion level and will continue to grow at close to 70% for at least the next three to five years, according to a new strategic report published by Insight and Intelligence, a Mary Ann Liebert company. Adding fuel to this emerging market is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which includes $20 billion for health information technology, with a focus on electronic medical records and telemedicine.
Benefits of Using Video for Guardian 24/7
- Easy to use, "always on" video service with no advance scheduling required, and instantly accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- Offers an added human touch by enabling patients to "see" and communicate with their doctor for added comfort and confidence
- Enables doctors to examine their patients with a high resolution video connection to facilitate diagnosis and treatment of many acute and chronic medical conditions
Guardian 24/7 and Glowpoint will be publishing a case study in early 2011 that will detail examples of patients who utilized the telehealth and Guardian's "ReadyRoom™" to achieve life saving results.
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