Wavelink has extended its healthcare market focus through a new distribution agreement with US-based healthcare technology company, Spok, for the Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) market.
The specialist distributor launched a new health practice in September 2016, to bind together solutions for the local health sector.
To lead this new division, the company appointed Paul Craven, who joined from Cumulus Technologies, where he served as director of sales for about seven years. He is also the owner of Brisbane-based reseller, CenturionIT.
Speaking to ARN at the time of his appointment, Craven said he saw a big partner opportunity in solutions that can improve patient care and drive operational efficiency for public and private hospitals and aged care facilities.
“The healthcare sector continues to make significant investment in IT. In the aged care sector alone there are currently 190,000 beds in Australia with an additional 82,000 beds expected to be required by 2022,” he said.
“With the ratio of staff-to-beds not currently mandated, and increased pressure on staff due to the growing number of highly-dependent residents, the need for solutions specifically targeted at this sector is huge.”
Spok offers communications solutions for healthcare, hospitality, and enterprise. Wavelink said the healthcare communications platform is “extremely flexible, spanning voice, messaging, alarms, and alerts across many different devices.” The product also features directory, scheduling, and preference data.
This is the vendor's first distribution deal in the A/NZ region and covers the vendor's alerting software, hardware, maintenance, and services. The agreement also covers distribution to Spok’s existing resellers and will be offered to Wavelink’s 300-strong reseller base.
“Spok Care Connect complements the work we are doing within the Wavelink Health Practice. Wavelink managing director, Ilan Rubin, said. “Our focus is to identify and deliver the clinical applications healthcare professionals need to improve patient care and provider responsiveness.
“This partnership is another step forward for Wavelink in developing a range of messaging and application solutions offerings for partners and customers," he said.
Wavelink has had some recent success with its new healthcare initiative. The company signed a deal with Chatswood Hospital in Sydney to update communication and improve its patient experience within its new facility through a telecommunications fit out.
The deal included a Fortinet wireless network and Spectralink wireless phones, and was carried out by managed services provider, Quorum Systems.
Speaking of the deal, Wavelink managing director, Ilan Rubin, said the company established its health practice to provide specialisation to its partners by providing end customers with solutions, not just hardware.
“The premise of the practice is to build solutions from use cases that improve patient care and drive operational efficiency, and this was what we delivered for Chatswood Private Hospital,” he said at the time.
