New agreements with Acadian Monitoring, DayaMed and HealthSpot represent how emerging technology and M2M enable consumer-driven solutions
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (BUSINESS WIRE), February 16, 2012 – Sprint (NYSE:S, news, filings) has been supporting the traditional healthcare delivery model for many years with a reliable network and secure messaging. Now Sprint is working with innovative companies to bridge the gap as healthcare evolves to a virtual model and focuses on improving quality, increasing efficiency and reducing costs. Emerging consumer-driven technologies are enabling patients to become better informed and more active in the healthcare process. With that in mind, Sprint announced new agreements with Acadian Monitoring, LLC, Daya Medicals, Inc. and HealthSpot, Inc.
- Sprint and M2M solution provider Reflection Solutions are collaborating with Acadian Monitoring Services’ Health Monitoring Center to provide 24/7 health monitoring. Together they will offer remote monitoring capabilities that operate over the Sprint wireless network. Acadian Monitoring Services has teams of trained Emergency Medical Dispatch certified healthcare professionals, including paramedics, who monitor data coming from the patients, including a patient’s location, health, physical activity, fall detection and medical alerts. The team is under the direction of Acadian’s medical director and is managed by a Registered Nurse. Acadian Monitoring Services’ Health Monitoring Center provides home health agencies, hospitals and elder care organizations with comprehensive services, including telehealth equipment rental, wireless connectivity and monitoring.
- DayaMed is developing the MedPod telehealth hub, a customized medication dispenser and platform that provides patients with precise medication doses and instructions. In addition, HIPAA-compliant alerts can be sent to any authorized member of the patient’s medical ecosystem. DayaMed is working with Sprint to develop embedded wireless connectivity for the MedPod. DayaMed provides patient centered medical consumer devices and services that are designed to elevate patient adherence to prescribed therapeutic regimes, raising patient health endpoints while lowering patient and overall healthcare costs.
- This morning, Sprint announced that it is working with HealthSpot to develop embedded wireless connectivity for the HealthSpot Care4 Station, a virtual doctor’s office.
“More Americans are suffering from chronic conditions such as obesity and diabetes than ever before,” said Wayne Ward, vice president-Emerging Solutions Group, Sprint. “Wireless Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication presents an opportunity to streamline healthcare and provide greater access to critical patient information at significantly less cost and effort. The potential to improve patient wellness and physician efficiency in an on-demand setting is just one example of how connected devices are changing the way we work and live.”
A strategic approach
Sprint’s advanced wireless management strategy helps hospitals and providers make sense of, manage and contain costs for wireless networks, devices and services. Many hospital networks are currently operating at or near capacity while overburdened IT staffs struggle to keep systems running. Sprint provides the wireless infrastructure so that healthcare providers can focus on service delivery.
“For 2012, it’s about engaging providers and consumers with enabling technologies to empower the transformation to a more consumer-driven system,” said Julee Thompson, chief healthcare executive, Sprint. “We are focusing on providing core infrastructure integration and key technology process improvements to assure mission-critical elements are in place.” Examples of wireless infrastructure include next-generation messaging supported by a unified communications platform, clinical DAS, mobile integration, M2M technology as well as business-continuity and emergency response solutions. “We want practitioners to have the ability to access secure electronic medical records (EMR) from virtually anywhere,” Thompson added. “Sprint is focused on helping healthcare providers get the right information, to the right person, using the right form factor, at the right time, with the right infrastructure and technical expertise.”
A commitment to healthcare
Sprint has sales, engineering, product development and marketing resources in place with a deep history and extensive experience within the healthcare industry. The team understands the industry, standards of practice and care delivery. Thompson has over 25 years of senior-level healthcare expertise, including patient care and operations. Sprint is a diamond corporate sponsor of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). Sprint is actively involved in local HIMSS chapters. Debbie Vogel, account manager, Sprint, was recently elected to the board of the Arizona HIMSS chapter.
As a demonstration of its commitment to the development of telemedicine as a healthcare delivery channel, Sprint is a Sustaining President’s Circle member of the American Telemedicine Association. Sprint works closely with customers to develop solutions to meet their unique needs. Through the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), Sprint executives meet with healthcare CIOs twice a year to discuss ideas about leveraging communications technology. Sprint is also a CHIME Foundation Firm and an associate member of the National Association for Home Care (NAHC). For more information, visit www.sprint.com/healthcare.
A network vision
To ensure that future demand for wireless connectivity will be met, Sprint embarked on a multiyear initiative to provide an enhanced network experience expected to provide faster data speeds and improved voice quality, while creating network flexibility, reducing operating costs and improving environmental sustainability. The program, called Network Vision, involves the deployment of multimode base stations across many of Sprint’s cell sites throughout the country. As base stations are deployed, customers are expected to notice immediate improvements both outside and inside buildings, plus 4G LTE capability will become available. Sprint expects to complete Network Vision by the end of 2013.
HIMSS12
The HIMSS annual conference and expo (HIMSS12) will take place Feb. 20 – 24 at the Venetian Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas. Sprint will have telehealth experts on hand in booth #3055 to talk about mobility management, M2M, clinical-grade infrastructure and business continuity.
About Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel served more than 55 million customers at the end of 2011 and is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including the first wireless 4G service from a national carrier in the United States; offering industry-leading mobile data services, leading prepaid brands including Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, and Assurance Wireless; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. Newsweek ranked Sprint No. 3 in its 2011 Green Rankings, listing it as one of the nation’s greenest companies, the highest of any telecommunications company. You can learn more and visit Sprint at www.sprint.com or www.facebook.com/sprint and www.twitter.com/sprint.
“Safe Harbor” Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
* This news release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the securities laws. The statements in this news release regarding network performance, coverage and capabilities, business and network efficiencies, migration of services new technologies, timing of deployment, and products and services, as well as other statements that are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements. The words “estimate,” “project,” “forecast,” intend,” “expect,” “believe,” “target,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are estimates and projections reflecting management’s judgment based on currently available information and involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking statements. With respect to these forward-looking statements, management has made assumptions regarding, among other things, development and deployment of new technologies; efficiencies and cost savings of multimode technologies; customer and network usage; customer growth and retention; service, coverage and quality; availability of devices; the timing of various events and the economic environment. Sprint Nextel believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable; however, you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which are based on current expectations and speak only as of the date of this release. Sprint Nextel is not obligated to publicly release any revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events after the date of this release. Sprint Nextel provides a detailed discussion of risk factors in periodic SEC filings, including in Part II, Item 1A, “Risk Factors,” of its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2011.
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Contact(s):
Sprint
Randy Spolter, 703-930-2671
randal.spolter@sprint.com
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