Orange and Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) have signed a co-operation agreement to address the healthcare challenges in Europe and emerging markets. The two companies will develop and jointly deliver the next wave of innovative solutions, enabling e-health and enhanced assisted living with a focus on better serving patients and the elderly, increasing the efficiency of business processes for healthcare professionals, and reducing the cost of healthcare delivery.
With this announcement, Orange and Alcatel-Lucent are leveraging their combined global expertise to provide solutions built upon reliable, future-proof communication networks to provide innovative e-health services of public and private health systems. Together, they will harness their skills, knowledge, innovation and technology to develop services of quality for patients and healthcare professionals.
Orange currently provides solutions such as 'Connected Hospitals' that simplify the work of medical teams by allowing access to patient information at the hospital and improving patient comfort. Similar solutions are also provided at the doctor's office through solution for remote follow-up, online appointment booking, and services. This set of services, developed through Orange Labs' skills and innovative capabilities, also enables patients to be monitored from the comfort of their homes instead of being hospitalised.
Alcatel-Lucent supplies its solutions to the healthcare providers - allowing them to improve patient care by eliminating information silos and, through its Telecare solutions, allow improved care of patients at home who suffer from chronic diseases. Leveraging a strong capacity for innovation through its Bell Labs research arm, Alcatel-Lucent is continuing to invest in the development of innovative healthcare solutions with partners such as the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre (UPMC) in the US, by putting the network in the core of the health organisation in order to facilitate access to quality care, and allowing healthcare professionals to benefit from telemedicine contributions for their medical practice.
Both companies have numerous common references, such as the Polyclinique de Picardie.
According toThierry Zylberberg, Executive Vice-President, Head of Orange Healthcare Division: “Telecommunications today means much more than voice services. Orange is constantly seeking to innovate in order to deliver greater value and to offer its customers services and solutions, such as e-health, to improve their life. Our agreement with Alcatel-Lucent in this field is a long-lasting one, highlighting our willingness to reinforce our co-operative efforts to deliver the best e-health solutions for our customers.”
Pierre Barnab'e, head of Alcatel-Lucent's business in France, added: “The health domain requires innovative, reliable, and secured communications solutions. Communications have to play a key role in the transformation of health systems and the marketplace is looking for trusted partners that understand a broad range of communications technologies and can simplify them in a turnkey solution. We believe this partnership with Orange illustrates perfectly our philosophy in terms of shared innovation and addresses the challenging healthcare domain requirements in a very innovative manner and in a way that will improve the life of the patients.”
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