Microsoft Targets the Healthcare Industry with Several New Features for Teams

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Microsoft hopes that one day, every company is using Teams as the central hub for productivity. Since the platform was announced a few years ago, the company has invested heavily into turning the tool that makes communication easier and more secure, into a digital hub for all aspects for many different types of businesses.

Earlier this year, we saw Teams add new features for educators and today, the company is announcing new updates that are aimed squarely at the healthcare industry.

Health organizations, unlike many other types of businesses, are heavily regulated. In addition, a timely response to a message, can mean the difference between life or death. Microsoft is looking to assist these types of organizations with three new features to make it easy to securely collaborate in this field and to make it easier to alert the proper personnel during emergencies.

New advanced messaging features include:

  • Priority notifications for urgent messages
  • Message delegation to securely manage urgent patient care
  • New platform enhancements that provide the ability to integrate electronic health records for care coordination

The idea here is quite simple, healthcare workers typically use several different tools for communication; urgent messages use one set of technologies and secure communications use another. Microsoft’s goal is to bring all this into one application and make it easier for healthcare workers to collaborate and communicate.

But the real advantage that Microsoft has in this space is that everything is already compliant with the various healthcare regulations in the US and around the globe. The company’s cloud platform is approved for use in these industries and by building Teams into its secure and compliant cloud platform, the company hopes that it will be an easy upsell to these organizations that already use its infrastructure.