Collaboration in the Information Age: the future of multimedia messaging in healthcare

Today's communication tools have become multidimensional - they encompass both real-time (calls, meetings) and non-real-time (voice mail, e-mail, databases) and include multiple modes of communication, from voice and video to full-text, files and URLs. The once separate techniques for communications are overlapping to help us become more competitive, while streamlining our work and putting us back in control of our time and activities. Telepresence for work and healthcare is changing the behavioral model for collaboration, increasing efficiency and providing greater flexibility, more timely access to information and consistent support. Two large-scale collaborative telehealth projects, the Illinois Rural Telehealth Alliance and the University HealthSystem Consortium desktop videoconferencing initiative, are examples of how collaborative technologies are altering business practices and strategic direction and preparing organizations for the challenges of the 21st Century where geographically dispersed collaborators will be able to work together in rich ways.