A partnership between Digicel and Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprises & Development (FRIEND) in consultation with the Ministry of Health & Medical Services has resulted in the provision of a COVID-19 helpline which is essential in the battle against the virus.
Digicel Fiji CEO, Farid Mohammed, said he is delighted with this milestone partnership as this initiative supports the MoH during this pandemic.
“The helpline is vital because it’s the prime contact for Fijians in anything related to COVID-19,” Mr Farid said.
“The platform is handling up to 25,000 calls a month,” he said.
According to statement Digicel Business designed and introduced the Telehealth solution during the COVID outbreak in Lautoka last April within 72 hours of being approached by FRIEND.
Telehealth provided patients with doctor consultation and medication refill services.
The design and delivery challenges involved from collaborating with pharmacies, call center and doctors on a single platform with a seamless call handover to each department.
Using Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) which is a cloud-delivered service, the mission critical helpline is successfully managing high call volumes.
The service offers enterprise telephony, meetings via audio, video, web conferencing, unified messaging, instant messaging, mobility and communications-enabled business processes.
Cloud-based solutions bring with them a number of benefits in terms of allowing businesses of all sizes to manage and optimise costs, being scalable and being accessible from anywhere.
Mr Farid said the success story of Telehealth in Lautoka saw Digicel and FRIEND in consultation with the MoH expanding the UCaaS to the Central division.
“We took this opportunity to aid our front liners and needy patients as within days the first COVID coordination ambulance line was setup where a patient that required retrieval could get access to an ambulance,” he said,
“The success of UCaaS has seen it expand to include cardiac, children’s, surgical, obstetrics, gynecology, cancer and eye clinics in the Western and Central divisions.”
Head of Wellness, MHMS, Dr. Devina Nand, said they are extremely delighted to work with Digicel who showed professionalism in their approach, ready to support and effective communications and resultant actions in getting this system up and going.
“This has enabled our forces to provision alternative normative services through telehealth initiatives in the Western and Central divisions and have greater population reach for service access,” Dr Nand said.
“Digicel’s UCaaS is a fantastic service that has eased a lot of pressure for our key personnel involved in the battle against Coronavirus, the ability to understand clientele needs, provision appropriate solutions and trouble shoot with the client and ensuring customer satisfaction with product, willingness for adaptation, flexibility and change makes work simpler in these tough times,” sh Nand.
