Transcribing medical image (X-ray, CT scans, ultrasound) dictations by radiologists and other specialists is a critical pivot point in diagnosing patience conditions and outcomes. Just as important, for both medical and billing purposes, is the coding of the processes involved in taking an image as well as getting the resulting information into patient records. Suffice it to say that one of my previous clients was heavily involved in this area from the medical side; I’ve seen the ongoing demands in this area covering regulatory compliance, patient case management integrity and insurance claim issues.

Enter Oak Horizons, an industry leader in medical transcription training, education, and curriculum development. Simply put they have leveraged Internet communications technology to make their programs available to healthcare facilities across the U.S., not only for the new medical imaging technician or transcriptionist but also ongoing training programs for experienced professionals who need to keep abreast of new developments within their field.

They found that they needed a collaboration resource where they could readily and persistently store lessons and complementary background information, lead training sessions in virtual meeting rooms, and activate tutorial sessions on demand. Enter InnerPass whose combination of online document management, desktop sharing and Skype communications provides an appropriate communications infrastructure that meets these needs. From the press release:

“When students first start their program, be it medical transcription, coding or billing, the course content tends to be very overwhelming,” says Kathryn Martin, owner and instructor at OAK Horizons. “The real-time introduction is very important and helpful, since the course content tends to overwhelm everyone at first. We set up an InnerPass meeting room and walk our students through the first lesson in real-time, and then throughout the semester hold check-in and help sessions. I think it really helps us to set the right tone with our students; that they’ll be learning the material through directed study, but there is real-time help and instruction if they need it,” says Martin.

As OAK Horizons looks to expand its roster of partnership and client organizations, Kathryn Martin realized she needed to set the organization apart from a growing field of competitors. She adopted InnerPass and leveraged the technology to implement a system that facilitates real-time collaboration, content sharing and tutorials between teachers and students. Instructors can invite students to small-group tutorials with a live-participation component, for those students who request extra time with an instructor.

InnerPass provides easy-to-use tools, including screen-sharing and “persistent” meeting rooms, which reduce the cost of online instruction, expand access to education and training opportunities, and bring client organizations to the leading edge of educational and training technology.

Bottom line: For an activity where medical practitioners can lose up to 20% of their potential income due to faulty insurance claims, InnerPass’s aggregation of document sharing and communications allows Oak Horizons’s clients to increase not only patient case integrity but also simplify the revenue recovery process from healthcare insurance companies.

Previous InnerPass posts.

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Last fall Phil Wolff at Skype Journal mused on the topic of “Why Collaboration is Strategic for Skype”. His conclusion – collaboration is a competitive edge:

Skype could advance the best collaboration practices and technology. And with Skype’s distribution (one billion accounts by 2013), could easily become the tool of choice for producing results, enjoying your job, and building economic security.

While I am not holding out any hope for the full collaboration amongst Skype, Facebook, MySpace and other social networking platforms that many would like to see, I have long seen the potential for a product that supports Skype voice, chat and video conversations, presence, persistent file transfer and document management along with desktop or screen sharing – all managed from a single client. Of course with any collaboration a degree of enhanced Contact management also helps simplify a worker’s daily activities.

My original exposure to online collaboration goes back to my Quarterdeck days when they had developed VoIP software and whiteboarding services. (The latter later became the foundation technology for Webex.) In the early 2000’s I did some work with a desktop sharing service; more recently, over my four years of covering Skype, I have seen a few collaboration services come and go. Unyte has become integrated into IBM’s LotusLive while a couple of Skype-enabled offerings have gone out of business (not for lack of support from Skype). Citrix “Go To” services (Go To Meeting, Go To Assist) have become popular collaboration services at $49.95 per month per host (in fact, last year Citrix Online acquired HiDef Conferencing to have a consistent audio component for these services).

Yet, business’s appetites for collaboration services continues to grow, probably accelerated by not only the cost of travel but also the security issues surrounding air travel today. And they are certainly looking at cost versus value-add in the feature set as one component of their decision making.

A year ago January InnerPass launched their collaboration offering that integrated Skype with basic business-class hosted document management services targeted at business and work teams. In one sense InnerPass could be considered a persistent version of Skype’s file transfer feature; recipient users do not have to be present when files are added, modified or downloaded. They can readily be accessed at any time by any of the designated participants in a Room. The service provides more value-add through the ability to manage multi-party team calls via Skype and/or the PSTN complemented by the ready availability of the team’s documents during the call.

The recently launched InnerPass 2.1 expanded on these services with:

• a new user interface that improves navigation, especially when it comes to working with document “rooms”, their associated user groups and screen sharing
• contact import integration with Skype, Outlook and 50 other services such as GMail, Hotmail, LinkedIn and MySpace.
• call scheduling and management, incorporating the ability to access a multi-party conference call via Skype or a conference bridge

But the launch of InnerPass 2.0 last fall appears to have accelerated growth of the user base; last week InnerPass passed above the 2 million downloads mark, about one year after launching their service. While initially attracting many downloads via the Skype Extras program, viral adoption as users invite participants into rooms and meetings now has taken over as the leading source of new users.

While there is a free “Personal” service, any serious user will easily pass its 2 room, 5 guests per room limit; this service basically serves as a trial offering. In fact, I purchased a $4.95 per month Professional plan some time ago and quickly ran my usage up to its limits. As result any serious user should expect to quickly get to the $14.95 per month Business plan where business teams have more flexibility for both managing and operating both their dynamic and ongoing collaboration activities.

Bottom line: InnerPass provides a low cost collaboration service for work teams who need to be persistently in contact across team members via shared documents, text chat and voice. Definitely a tool to consider when it comes to increasing team productivity while keeping sharing costs under control.

Click here to download InnerPass for either Windows or Mac.

Since its launch about two years ago, I have blogged several times about iotum’s CalliFlower Conference Calling service. More significantly I have used it for several conference calls of up to 25 people, including a couple that ran for over two hours. While permitting up to several hundred participants into a conference call, Calliflower’s primary unique feature is the “portal” created for each call along with the long term archiving of a call and its associated “portal”. Other features include:

• access via the PSTN in over 100 cities in 30 countries (using phone numbers supplied by Voxbone)
• ability to display (and share) documents supporting the conference call’s agenda
• a common chat window, often used to share URL’s, provide information complementary to the primary discussion or even ensure all participants have correct spellings of key words used in the discussion
• a complete service that supports the entire conference call process from initial invitations to the final archiving of the call
• an iPhone client for setting up and accessing a CalliFlower session
• sessions can be either private requiring invitations or public; the archived content of public sessions is searchable

Today iotum has announced the addition of Skype as a way to access Calliflower conference calls; from the press release:

Previously, participants could only dial into Calliflower conferences through PSTN access numbers, potentially incurring local charges.  In regions or countries where no such access numbers are available, customers would incur long-distance and even international charges, or use up Skype-out minutes calling access numbers overseas.  Now callers can access Calliflower through a Skype ID – CalliflowerSkype – or via a web button in the Calliflower UI, overcoming this disadvantage.

“We’ve had many requests from potential Calliflower customers who had no local access numbers, especially from  parts of Africa, India, China and the Middle East,” said Alec Saunders, iotum CEO. “Now, as long as they have Skype, that doesn’t matter anymore.”

In addition, users gain from the better audio quality they will enjoy through direct Skype access¹, as well as from all the visual information, documents and presentations that are shared through Calliflower’s interactive dashboard. These tools go a long way toward improving understanding on international conference calls.

Available on PC, Mac and iPhone, Calliflower makes organizing and participating in multi-party calls simple and engaging.  It allows participants to see the status of other callers and raise hands to request the floor, while also providing interactive chat, document sharing, intuitive conference controls, call recording, invitations and reminders, integration with calendars, and more.

On your initial access to a CalliFlower call you will need to add CalliFlowerSkype as a Skype Contact. But then recall that Skype allows you the option of using your Skype Online number or a designated mobile phone number as your caller ID for SkypeOut calls. When accessing a CalliFlower conference call on Skype, CalliFlower will look at your callerID in place of entering a PIN number to provide authentication for your access. iotum is looking at adding the ability to use your SkypeID as a participant identifier.

As with access in over 30 countries via the PSTN, Skype Access in CalliFlower is included in the monthly Premium service with a monthly charge of $50 for the first two moderators or organizers within a company and $25 per additional organizer.

Bottom line: Skype Access opens up lower cost access for participation in a CalliFlower conference call in every country where Skype is available. Incorporation of Skype access also fits into Skype’s “Skype Everywhere” goal. In this case calls can be accessed not only via Skype on a PC but also from any Skype offering on a mobile platform. This is enhanced for iPhone users where they will also find an iPhone client for setting up and managing a CalliFlower conference call.

¹I asked iotum CEO Alec Saunders to clarify the statement re improved auido quality; his response:

1. Better quality hardware. Skype users tend to be using better quality equipment than POTS callers.  In particular most PC headsets have a better microphone than the cheap microphones in telephone handsets.
2. 2. Fewer transcoding losses. Internally, Calliflower is VoIP.  When a user calls Calliflower from the PSTN, those calls transit a media gateway where the media is transcoded and presented as G.711.  Prior to the direct connection we’ve initiated, media coming from Skype would be transcoded at least twice – from Skype to the PSTN, and then PSTN to G.711.  The result was a noticeable degradation in quality.  Now Skype presents the media to us directly as G.711.

Other posts:

Check out Tom Keating’s post over at his VoIP and Gadgets blog on TMCNet where he interviews iotum CEO Alec Saunders about how CalliFlower implemented its Skype access via Skype for SIP, involving Skype for SIP’s addition of IP address authentication.

Full disclosure: the author has followed the evolution of CalliFlower over its three year development process, and was a frequent participant in iotum’s SquawkBox calls where not only did we discuss technology news of the day but also contributed ideas and suggestions for improvements and enhancements to the CalliFlower service. You can access the archive of the SquawkBox call discussing the FREETALK Everyman headset at the time of its launch here.

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Over the past eighteen months I have often reported on iotum’s Calliflower voice conferencing service as it has evolved and matured. For the first time in a few months I had occasion to use it once again yesterday evening. Connecting  11 participants in the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto triangle, New York and Virginia, I can report on an excellent quality, two hour and ten minute call with no interruptions where everyone was clearly understood. (Even the dogs co-operated by not barking in the background although someone’s cell phone did ring at one point.) And it’s archived for access by all members of the group, including those who could not participate in the call.

However, not only has the overall consistency of call quality improved but calls hosted by a Premium Service subscriber ($50/month for two organizers, unlimited calling and participants) can now be accessed “locally” from over 100 cities in 30 countries:

Calliflower flat-rate conferencing services are now available in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

If there was one improvement that could be made it would be to make it more obvious on the invitation emails that a participant should RSVP whether they will/may/will not attend. As demonstrated with recent enhancements to Tungle, the meeting scheduling service, invitation emails must clearly explain all the steps to be taken to respond to the invitation appropriately. In my case yesterday, I was sending invitation emails to “newbies” unfamiliar with the service; some did not know how to respond. As a result I had to send separate emails to non-responding participants to ensure they knew how to access the service.  The issue has been reported to iotum personnel who now have this issue as a “ToDo” item on their action list.

And how much of a value is this service? Ten years ago, using Bell Canada conferencing service, the 11-party call I mentioned in the introduction would have cost $787.00 with additional minutes at a cost of $0.55 per minute per participant just for the voice service. How business models change! But with Calliflower you can also see who is on the call, manage participation through muting and hand raising, share documents, augment the conversation through a chat window and record/archive the call.

Bottom line: with a rewording of their email invitations, Calliflower certainly delivers on its offering of unlimited calling from over 100 cities worldwide along with tools that enhance the conversation. During last night’s call, Calliflower went into the background and was transparent to the discussion; we accomplished our meeting agenda and objectives uninterrupted by the technology.

Overlooked: Calliflower conference calls can also be scheduled, accessed and moderated via their iPhone application.

Click here for more details about the Calliflower service

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Over the past eighteen months CalliFlower has evolved into a complete audio conference call service. While they still offer a basic free service, in January they launched a premium service that provides document sharing, local calling numbers in North America, Europe and Australia as well as a feature that allows administrators to set up, but not necessarily participate in, a conference call. The most important feature is “no per minute charges”; you get “unlimited calling with an unlimited number of participants”.

Last week, over at Web Worker Daily, I wrote a post “Search Transforms CalliFlower Sessions from Events to Social Media Elements” where CalliFlower had announced that they had made all public CalliFlower sessions searchable such that they become part of an ongoing social networking conversation. My conclusion:

If you are into social networking by engaging your customers through blogs, Twitter and/or Facebook, check out CalliFlower as one additional element for carrying on your ongoing public customer conversations.

Yesterday the CalliFlower team woke up to learn that their CalliFlower for iPhone had been added to the Apple App Store overnight. (Yes, apparently “it just happens”; Apple uploads new or upgraded applications with no notice.) The iPhone application provides access to all of CalliFlower’s features with the exception of document sharing (which requires Adobe Flash – an issue for all smartphones). Set up a call, see your upcoming calls, see who’s on the call, participate in the chat wall and, of course, call in from your iPhone – they’re all there providing a unique mobile smartphone conference call experience. iotum CEO Alec Saunders provides more details in his post “CalliFlower on iPhone releases“  where he states:

And Calliflower on iPhone – well, let me just say that you’re going to love it.  We’ve remained faithful to the Calliflower experience on the web, while taking full advantage of the iPhone experience giving you the hands down BEST mobile conferencing experience ever.  Here’s a few examples of what I mean.

Check out my Web Worker Daily post and Alec’s full description of CalliFlower for iPhone. Also note that CATA makes Calliflower available to 28,500 members. If you have not signed up for the service, give it a try. Or install on your iPhone via iTunes here.

Full disclosure: the author is a user of the service for a non-blogging related project with great success. I call in to CalliFlower calls via SkypeOut.

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At CES 2009 COO Scott Durchslag spoke about “liquid communications” and “Skype Wherever, Whenever”. InnerPass has developed a business-class hosted document management system; they have been marketing it via private label to over 3000 businesses or project teams on several continents.Over the past year the InnerPass team has developed a Skype Extra application that introduces real time communications, and serves as an interface, into this system.  From their website:

InnerPass helps companies control their business critical files from anywhere and anytime. Our applications are delivered thru various Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings that are entirely web-based. InnerPass primarily offers its applications to end users through a network of partners who can private label and embed the software service into their own solutions or provide as a stand alone service.

InnerPass Share and Collaborate Home Page

InnerPass starts out its communications enhanced service, called InnerPass Share and Collaborate, by building persistent document “meeting rooms” that store mission critical documents such as FDA filings, engineering and architectural drawings, legal agreements, real estate papers and other business documents which require:

• access across a geographically dispersed team of project stakeholders
• persistent storage for asynchronous 24/7/365 access
• version management

amongst other features. InnerPass has taken their document management service experience and gone a step further to support file sharing, collaboration and real time communications. They embed, within their own Skype Extra client, the ability to launch and hold real time voice and/or chat conversations, whether informal ad hoc sessions or scheduled conference calls, to discuss the underlying projects, sales meetings or other business team activity.

Using InnerPass Share and Collaborate, a user can set up a “meeting room”, store documents, launch conversations and share a designated screen for presentations or demonstrations. The room’s host can designate and invite team members from amongst his/her Skype contact list, grant permission to their team members to contribute or modify room content. From anywhere in the client, any team member has the ability to schedule and launch conference calls or group chats using the integrated Skype services.

InnerPass offers three levels of their collaboration service. A free service supports up to 3 meeting rooms with a maximum of 3 participants and 1GB of file storage (max 25MB per file). Offering perpetual file storage, the Professional Plan at $4.95/month supports 10 meeting rooms and up to 10 participants in each. The Business plan, at $12.95/month, allows up to 40 rooms and 40 people per room. Their last plan, launching in March,  is designed for the SMB (Small to Medium Size Business) will offer additional features including access to their hosted full document management service. Update (May 2009): Inner Pass also offers a “Custom” service with the potential to host a webinar with hundreds of attendees, record calls and other features.

Over the past few weeks I have experienced a few sessions using InnerPass; the InnerPass  team has been very responsive to suggestions made for improvements, especially with respect to some speed issues that are now resolved. It now works reliably with both Skype 3.8 (still Skype’s latest release for general use) and Skype 4.0 Beta 3.

Since obtaining Skype Certification and its subsequent launch last fall, InnerPass has registered over 270,000 users (as shown in the graphic) growing virally amongst Skype users with little publicity. You can download via Tools | Do More | Get Skype Extras using Skype 3.8 or Tools | Extras | Get Skype Extras under Skype 4.0 for Windows beta 3. Normally it should show up as “InnerPass Share and Collaborate” under the “Sharing” category but until a bug is resolved by the Skype Extras team, you may find it as “Share, Collaborate, Communicate”.

InnerPass CEO Steve Parsloe has written a more detailed post for Skype’s Autumn 2008 Developer Newsletter. And in early December Steve along with his colleague Bill Trail, Vice-President, Business Development discussed InnerPass as a guest on SquawkBox.

As mentioned at the beginning, InnerPass’s Share and Collaborate service is a representative example of making Skype available anywhere there is an opportunity to benefit from real time conversations. Skype has enabled InnerPass to offer real time conversations to virtual meeting rooms incorporating file and desktop (or screen) sharing. And it brings large enterprise services down to a cost level such that any individual, mobile professional or small business can afford to benefit from a collaborative document management service.

Tags: InnerPass, Skype Extras, collaboration, file sharing, Skype, Steve Parsloe

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