New Virtual Health Templates extend Skype for Business as platform for developers

Modern healthcare providers are constantly looking for innovative ways to service and connect their patients and care teams. We are excited to announce the publication of new developer templates that extend Skype for Business as a platform for virtual healthcare. Office 365 with Skype for Business Online addresses the critical communication needs of healthcare providers, and these templates enable new mediums for care coordination for patients without requiring an Office 365 subscription.

The Office 365 Virtual Health Templates allow you to accelerate building your virtual consult experiences by providing an open source solution using the Skype for Business SDKs announced earlier in 2016. These SDKs are powered by Office 365 and Skype for Business Online and support building web and mobile experiences that integrate presence, chat, audio and video with custom business experiences. Publishing these open source templates is a continuation of our investment in making Skype for Business and Office 365 a high-value platform for developers and partners. The templates use modern web development technologies and leverage existing Skype for Business video services, making it easier for developers to build their own portals and apps integrated with other healthcare applications like electronic health record (EHR) management systems and scheduling systems.

“Since introducing telemedicine, built on Office 365 and Skype SDKs, we have seen a nearly 40 percent decrease in mortality rates in our Critical Care TeleHealth Program. We currently see an average of 361 patients per day via Skype across all programs, and are continuing to invest in our telehealth practice to meet the evolving needs of our providers and patients.”
—Lonnie Buchanan, director of Enterprise Architecture at Intermountain Healthcare

 

We have provided open source pages, site functions, authentication and connection to the Skype for Business APIs. As an open source project, we are actively encouraging participation in the community of other like-minded developers. To get more information about the developer assets being shared, please check out our blog over on dev.office.com.

We look forward to working with developers and partners to create new applications and scenarios with Office 365 and Skype for Business. Key customers and partners are already seeing the benefits of these templates, for example:

RingMD
RingMD is a pre-release partner with Microsoft’s Skype for Business. With the integration of Skype’s new APIs, RingMD now can support virtual consultations through the platform. This means that every healthcare institution and practice that’s already an Office 365 customer can quickly, and easily, start facilitating virtual consultations through the RingMD platform with their patients and in their networks, doctor to doctor.

Cambio
Cambio is at the forefront of digitalizing doctor-patient visits, by integrating our EMR, Cambio COSMIC, with Skype for Business. The integrated solution is very easy to use and the time saving potential is substantial. Together with Microsoft, Cambio is launching a totally integrated platform for e-visits.

CareFlow
Integrating Skype for Business with CareFlow’s products is completely transformational in the way it bridges clinical records and communications and embeds video conferencing technology within clinical workflows. Clinicians across a care community can hold meetings and conversations with each other or with their patients in a way which is secure, patient-identified and recorded as part of the clinical record.

Virtual Health Templates 2

Want your own integration with Office 365 and Skype for Business?

Excellent! Visit dev.office.com/skype where you’ll find documentation and code samples to help you get started. Once you jump in, tell us what you think. Give us your feedback on the API and documentation through GitHub and Stack Overflow or make new feature suggestions on UserVoice.

Andrew Bybee, principal GPM for the Skype for Business team

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