TANDBERG Telepresence T3 Tour Part II

TANDBERG T3 Telepresence System

With that Tony, let me hand it over to you. Let’s talk a little bit about the control system.

So, the TANDBERG T3 controller has three 24-inch touchscreen panel screens. Normally, well, for a user to bring up this interface, he would just press this menu button here in the center that would bring up this. Keep in mind T3 actually has six PC connection points and that includes audio, video, network, power where you can plug in your laptop, and you get the corresponding PC button and would then be on this screen as well as that screen at the far end. We are right now in the user interface menu.

So the first thing I see here is kind of my favorites list where the people I attend the call most often. There is also a keypad for manual dialing as well as the keywords here doing URI dialing and also the last area is a phonebook. This would actually be populated by TMS, so this could be talking to your LDAP, your Active Directory or h.350 or Exchange Server doesn’t really matter. When the time comes, I am getting ready to have a call, I could just take a location and drag it up to the top of the screen to get a graphical representation of where everybody would be on the screen. I could also bring in some non-telepresence sites as well or if I want to bring in a couple of more telepresence sites, once again just drag and drop to where I would like them to be.

And also, before I start the call, I can kind of decide where on the screen I want everybody to show up. So right before I start the call, once I have decided that that’s where I want it to be, I initiate the call either by hitting the green buttons or the start meeting buttons. Now to disconnect the calls, I could just go ahead and hit these red buttons to disconnect them. But we find what’s been very popular is the ability to just take the sites and flick them off the screen and just remove them off as quickly as we brought them in. So a nice easy way to remove participants from your meeting.

So, great, Tony, thank you very much. That’s a little bit about the control system there. So what we want to talk to you now about is the telepresence server itself. Right now we are in a live call to London, England. Let me go back while Tony’s setting up this part of the call and talk a little bit again about the LED blue walls. You notice the participants would be seated at the far side and my local blue wall with me behind me. What happens in the call as the participants are in the room there is your eyes tend to focus not only with the participants at the far side but they play off our blue wall locally which allows you to sort of get the feeling of some spatial capabilities taking place. Which is a really long-winded way of saying they tend to look very 3D to you. So that’s another reason for the LED lit blue walls in the back.

So, Tony, with that, let’s talk a little bit about the telepresence server and what you have brought up on the screen here.

All right. So one thing we kind of know is there is a little bit of limitation to telepresence multi-site in the industry was that everybody was doing screen flipping. And what I mean by that is nobody ever showed up on the screen unless they spoke, that’s at a little counterproductive from a visual communication standpoint saying that if you don’t talk you are not being seen.

So with telepresence server, we have kind of stepped up the capabilities in telepresence multi-site. By that I mean so I do have these six seats in London up and they may be the feature speaker. But what you also can see here is we have embedded all six seats of another T3 unit down there, an Experia unit. So everybody’s always in eye contact will meet. So I can read those visual cues, are they really paying attention, do they really comprehend what I am saying. And the other thing we will see is we have also embedded a couple of non-telepresence sites down here. What I am going to ask is I am going to ask Melissa to just talk to us for a couple of seconds.

TANDBERG Telepresence T3 Tour Continued…

Telemedicine and TANDBERG Video Conferencing Equipment Part II

Joe D’Iorio: Sure. Again, Tim, a great question. And what we really see is that programs will start out with a medical discipline with a focus on delivery of care and where we really see advantages and when programs are really working, we see those programs growing. So if I had a piece of advice, it would be always plan, build from the core out, the core being the network center ability to scale your program to be able to get that talent to the right place at the right time in a fluid and easy fashion whether they be inside the healthcare organization or whether they be outside that firewalled environment and out into the cloud as it’s called.

Tim Roan: That’s good advice. We see this phenomenon growing, we see the use of video in healthcare and the telepresence is always one that keeps coming back. I assume at TANDBERG you use that as well.

Joe D’Iorio: Yes, TANDBERG does have, we do have products that deal in that telepresence environment again, that ability to bring a group of individuals together. Telepresence by its definition, I think really is bringing people together and making it feel like you are all in the same room discussing the same issues at the same time. So in that telepresence or that virtual environment, it’s important to have the right mechanics to be able to allow it to feel like a fluid motion, you are all at the table at the same time.

Tim Roan: I have seen pictures of that. I haven’t actually experienced it myself but you seem and in fact anybody who watches 24, is familiar with the giant screen teleconference, the President of the United States, whoever it is that particular episode of 24 is talking to somebody across the world. But in a physician situation in a hospital or in a patient situation, you probably want something that just sits right there on a desktop computer, don’t you?
Joe D’Iorio: Yes, and in fact, that really brings about the wide spectrum of video conferencing devices that are all brought into this environment from the top end in that “telepresence” type environment to the mid-level, the regulatory environment, the products that are used in the emergency room and the ICU to bring that talent in and then the ability to allow that doc to be highly mobile. So we see PC video conferencing in that lower level that ubiquitous, commercial tool that allows that physician really to be anywhere anytime and to allow them to have that expertise at the right time at the right place.

Tim Roan: It’s changing the way medicine is practiced, especially in rural areas.

Joe D’Iorio: Well, it absolutely is and telemedicine has really got roots and the ability to streamline and change the delivery of healthcare, not from the quality, not from the medical assessment standpoint but from the be-there-now standpoint.

Tim Roan: That’s a perfect quote with which to wrap up. I think we are about out of time. So we — I want to thank Joe D’Iorio for being with us, the Healthcare Manager at TANDBERG.

Joe D’Iorio: Well, Tim, and if I might, I would like to provide you with one of our show giveaways, a pair of sunglasses. We see the future of telehealth so bright that you are going to need shades.

Tim Roan: Okay, well, thank you very much. I will give them a try right now. This is Tim Roan in Las Vegas. Thanks very much for being with us. Talking with Joe D’Iorio from TANDBERG at the ATA 2009 annual meeting.

How to Manage a Complex Video Conferencing Environment

Welcome everybody to episode number 35 of Polycom OnDemand. I am your host Scott Whitney. On today’s show, we are going to concentrate on the issues surrounding the management of a complex Video Conferencing environment.

Hello again everybody and welcome to Polycom OnDemand, the show that demonstrates how collaboration technology can make your life much, much easier. We can be reached on the Web at PolycomOnDemand.com and our email address is podcast@polycom.com. You can use that email to send us comments or to submit questions for us to answer on subsequent shows.

For a first person look into many of the issues facing customers trying to manage a complicated Video Conferencing environment along with the talk about what can be done to make things easier, I am pleased to be joined on the phone by Director of Worldwide Service Marketing Charlie Wiseman. Charlie, welcome back to Polycom OnDemand.

Thank you, Scott. Glad to be back.

That’s great to have you, Charlie. Hey, Charlie, why don’t we start by having you help me understand some of the problems I might be faced with when it comes to management of a complex Video Conferencing environment?

Okay. It basically comes down to the problems falling into several areas. So let’s first take the infrastructure or the core network and the ability to be able to manage that especially when you have diverse locations. So if you are spread out, you have multiple locations, you have different people covering those locations, how do you manage that and totally get your arms around that. When you add the complexity of the telephony deployment on top of that, then it really gets hard to manage the whole infrastructure. And when you have to look at how are some of the ways in which you can do that and you look across the multiple people that you use, you now have the issues with training, the ability to keep those people up to date so that they can manage everything on the different technologies that are changing on three or six month technology cycles.

And the last piece that really adds to complexity is you could be looking at 40 or more endpoints, at least one or two MCU units and now you have added in the complexity of all of this equipment. So it gets very, very difficult for someone to try to keep their arms around this.

And I would expect as the complexity grows, there will be other people issues as well.

Exactly. And you don’t only have the learning curve for the support people and your local onsite people, but you also have the difficultly that comes with the differences in location, often times geographical differences so you may have some language problems and barriers that you need to deal with as well as time barriers. So when you put all of those into the mix and you are trying to manage your customer satisfaction levels, and provide them with the most available uptime and that is the availability of their conferencing and collaboration equipment, it’s hard to do in today’s market.

Well, is there a typical type of customer who would be dealing with these issues?

To be continued…

Telemedicine and TANDBERG Video Conferencing Equipment

Welcome to the American Telemedicine Association 2009 Annual Meeting from Las Vegas, Nevada and the Rio Hotel and Convention Center right in the middle of the exhibit hall floor of the ATA 14th annual meeting.

I am joined now by Joe D’Iorio who is the Healthcare Manager with TANDBERG. Joe, thank you very much for joining us.

Joe D’Iorio: Well, Tim, thank you. It’s a pleasure joining today and so I appreciate you offering this interview.

Tim Roan: Let’s talk about video conferencing in healthcare. I know that TANDBERG is famous for your video equipment, you are known in the two-way corporate video conferencing. What the healthcare manager must be bringing the company into this whole division? What do you do within this realm?

Joe D’Iorio: Well, I work with programs throughout the, what we call our Americas business unit and oversee and watch and advise on how telemedicine programs are emerging and what the growth and where the application advantages are in bringing real-time interactive telecommunications into this healthcare environment.

Tim Roan: So what’s the benefit then? You have a product that goes between patient and physician? Maybe we should start with the basics of exactly what the patient experience and physician experience is.

Joe D’Iorio: Sure. Tim, we see video conferencing affecting healthcare in the clinical delivery side in the mechanism that allows that talent to be at the right place at the right time. So we see trending towards being able to provide efficiency for the patient as well as for the medical professional to be able to streamline those services and deliver that care in a timely and effective fashion.

Tim Roan: The [principal] safety issue, when you introduce any kind of broadcast even if it’s Internet based in the patient-physician relationship, what — doesn’t it introduce some potential problems?

Joe D’Iorio: Actually it does and it’s important to keep in mind that as we emerge as an industry, it’s really important to keep in mind that safety protocols, standards and procedures, regulatory environment requires that we keep cognizant of the fact that medical devices and the safety regulations involve with incorporating medical into telecommunications and creating this telehealth environment that we adhere to the established safety and regulatory protocols.

Tim Roan: And how does TANDBERG accomplish that?

Joe D’Iorio: Well, we have products that are designed specifically as medical products. So the video conferencing units that are designed and engineered to be used in that gaseous explosive gas in that highly regulatory safety environment. So we talk about safety and quality all being paramount to the adequate and effective delivery of good quality care.

Tim Roan: You don’t have to look any further than the fact that people are watching us on the Internet today to realize that video is just exploding and in healthcare more and more physicians and corporations and the admin level are bringing in video conferencing. You have some advice for those who are moving into this area for the first time?

To be continued…