Orange to enable up to £300m savings for the UK healthcare market with launch of Orange Health Gateway

* Continued healthcare drive through NHS approved messaging platform
* Modular service designed to allow better patient care and more effective internal resourcing through improved communications
* Opportunity to improve attendance rates, free up appointment slots and cut the cost of missed appointments by up to 38%
* Easier communications with patients and employees through familiar, everyday medium of mobile

Orange announced the launch of its second new service specifically aimed at the UK healthcare sector. The Orange Health Gateway allows hospitals, doctors’ surgeries and pharmacies to use mobile communications to transform patient services and become more efficient through a selection of two-way messaging modules.

The Orange Health Gateway can help every healthcare organisation get messages to patients and employees quickly and easily, whether to remind them of upcoming appointments, improve the communication of test results, speed up the resourcing of replacement nurses or improve patient adherence to medication. The applications are available through a simple, secure web environment, which allows mobile technology to become an integral part of the way healthcare providers communicate with patients and employees.

Orange Health Gateway powered by iPLATO

The Orange Health Gateway is available as a series of modules that can be selected to meet healthcare customers’ specific needs.

The Appointment Reminders module enables organisations to send timely, personalised appointment reminders to patients and manage cancellations and confirmations, which could reduce the number of wasted appointment slots by up to 38%1. With missed appointments estimated to be costing the NHS £790 million per year2, this module alone could lead to savings of £300 million per year. Appointment Reminders has a very low start-up cost and can be deployed within days.

Additional Messaging modules from the Orange Health Gateway can also enable healthcare providers to:

* Track and communicate routine medical results to patients
* Distribute emergency contact messages to employees in case of an incident
* Send and receive employee messages to help with effective resourcing, particularly when reaching out to contract staff
* Send out bespoke messages by working with Orange and iPLATO to create a tailored solution for their specific needs, for example creating automated messages for employees or patients

Michael Lawrence, Head of Corporate Propositions at Orange UK said, “Orange Health Gateway offers the healthcare sector the opportunity to improve patient services and deliver real savings by capitalising on the everyday use of mobile. It enables healthcare providers to make better use of time and resources, at a time when efficiency gains are front of mind. As well as helping to provide excellent patient care through shorter waiting lists and quicker updates, healthcare organisations can also transform their entire communications system, proving that technology and partnerships can enable real change. With minimal management commitments combined with maximum efficiency and cost savings, Orange Health Gateway will ease the lives of patients and professionals across the healthcare sector alike.

“Orange Health Gateway comes hot on the heels of our first healthcare solution in the UK, Orange smartnumbers, and demonstrates the Orange commitment, as part of Everything Everywhere, to providing the very best products and services for all types of businesses”.

iPLATO Healthcare powers the Orange Health Gateway, as well as providing professional services to help healthcare organisations launch and evolve their eHealth services. The platform is hosted on N3 and complies with the NHS’s data security and information government requirements.