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Imagine the pain of sending your newborn baby or toddler miles from home just so they can receive specialized medical care. Countless families face this predicament simply because they don't live near a major children's hospital. In southern Ohio, video technology is helping more families to stay closer to home and remain together.

In 2006, a need for critical care forced 140 children to make the 70-mile trip from Adena Regional Medical Center in Chillcothe, Ohio, to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus.

"Obviously, for the care of the child, we wanted to err on the side of caution," said Marcus Bost, CIO of Adena Health System, the nonprofit regional health system made up of the medical center and several clinics.

Now, a high-definition video conferencing system running on a Cisco-powered network connects these young patients at Adena Regional Medical Center with specialists at Nationwide Children's Hospital. Doctors miles away can instantaneously:

• See video images of the patient
• Receive test results
• Talk directly with those administering treatment locally

Since this technology enables a more thorough evaluation, only children who truly need critical care are transferred.

One year after the adoption of this telemedicine solution, the number of children Adena sent for treatment in Columbus was reduced by half.

Dollars and Sense

Collaborative video technology is obviously saving some families a lot of heartache, but it's also saving organizations like Adena plenty of money. Each child transferred to Nationwide Children's costs roughly $10,000. In 2007 alone, Adena reduced these transfer costs by nearly three quarters of a million dollars. Most importantly, it did so without sacrificing care.

"We are moving forward with more telemedicine initiatives, and they're all being planned out and weighed against the benefits of the patients, benefits of the community, and obviously, the return on investment plays in there, as well," Bost said.

Justifying an investment in collaboration technologies, like video, is easy because the returns show up on several fronts. Alan Cohen, Vice President of Enterprise Solutions at Cisco, points to reduced costs, increased productivity, and superior innovation. He estimates that collaboration solutions can deliver $100 billion worth of stimulus through productivity gains achieved by facilitating better ways to work.

Anyone who has endured a pointless meeting would not be surprised to learn that studies suggest that most of the world's 250 million knowledge workers waste about an hour and a half a day in bad meetings.

"People are not prepared and are not paying attention," Cohen said. "In fact, actual research shows that some people admit to not just daydreaming but actually sleeping in bad meetings."

Collaboration solutions like video let the right people to access necessary information when they get together. They also cut down on wasted time and money sitting on an airplane -- or, worse yet, waiting out a flight delay in the airport.

Cisco itself saves $250 million in travel costs through the use of TelePresence, and at the same time, has interacted with 30 percent more customers.

Collaborating Across Continents

If it weren't for TelePresence solutions, executives at Bobcat Company would have a lot more frequent flier miles, but would also spend a lot less time being productive in the office or enjoying their families. In 2007, the Fargo, N.D.-based manufacturer of compact excavators, loaders, and utility equipment and their attachments was acquired by Doosan Infracore, which was then headquartered in South Korea.

Suddenly executives needed to bridge both the 7,500-mile distance between them and a cultural communications divide. They deployed Cisco TelePresence endpoints in Fargo and Charlotte, N.C., as well as in Korea. Now, executives can communicate face-to-face and work together as a team without wasting two days flying across oceans and continents.

Eliminating just a few of those trips resulted in significant savings for Doosan Infracore. TelePresence also led to quicker decision-making and smoother relationship building.

Beyond healthcare and manufacturing, video has applications across all vertical industries. For instance, instead of turning away business when an expert isn't on site, retailers can use video to link customers with product managers who may be in a different location.

"The key issue here is about taking things that might be large or distributed and making them like you're actually all working in the same building," Cisco's Cohen said. "That's how people really should be thinking about this."

Getting Started

Cohen believes videoconferencing or other collaborative solutions deliver the best results when they are part of the CEO's vision for how the company can work most effectively. Implementation is a three-step process that begins with an assessment of the company's culture and an understanding of ways to better deploy internal knowledge to improve performance, grow revenue, or reduce costs.

Next, businesses must review their processes to make sure they are encouraging workers to collaborate. Finally, the right technology will lead to meaningful engagements that quicken the pace at which employees can find information and each other.

Once organizations reap the benefits of enhanced collaboration, they're often eager to embark on new projects. Adena is extending its telemedicine initiative to connect local stroke patients, as well as those admitted to the Intensive Care and Emergency Departments, with specialized caregivers in Columbus.

"Imagine if you could be a virtual hospital and you had 525 million patients out there to treat," Bost said. "That's a whole new space, and there are just really exciting numbers around that."