French mobile telecomms giant Orange has launched a mobile messaging service specifically targeted at healthcare.
The Health Gateway service is intended to enable hospitals, doctors’ surgeries and pharmacies to use two-way messaging to provide appointment reminders, routine test results, and medication reminders to patients.
It will also allow health organisations to send staff incident emergency messages to mobile devices.
The web-based Health Gateway will be delivered in conjunction with UK company iPlato, whose platform is hosted on the NHS N3 network.
The service is split into modules, which can be deployed by health organisations to meet their own requirements.
Orange claims that the appointment reminders module could save the NHS £300m a year by reducing the number of appointments wasted by ‘did not attends’, by allowing patients to manage cancellations and confirmations.
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.”
The launch is the second offering from Orange aimed at the healthcare market in recent months.
In July, the telecoms giant entered the UK e-health market by introducing its Smartnumbers service, which aims to put patients in direct contact with the health professional that they need.
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