Orange has launched Orange smartnumbers, a dedicated service for healthcare professionals, designed to designed improve patient care and increase efficiency by cutting the time it takes to contact healthcare professionals. The service gives callers instant access to the best placed person or team available, providing patients and healthcare workers with the ability to reach the right person, first time, every time they call.
Orange says that 60 per cent of calls made by community-based healthcare staff working on the move, such as midwives and nurses, fail to reach the right person first time. With time saved on locating colleagues, the efficiency of those people working outside GP surgeries or hospitals is increased, resulting in the health sector being better able to focus on providing patient care.

Orange has partnered with Resilient Networks to launch the service. Orange has had a dedicated healthcare division in Europe for four years, and has a 10-year legacy in the healthcare sector.  The launch signifies Orange’s first activity in the UK healthcare industry, and the first service of its kind here by any mobile operator. 
“We believe that there is huge potential for mobile communications to help the UK healthcare industry to provide better services to the public and increase efficiencies at the same time,” says Martin Stiven, VP of business at Orange parent company, Everything Everywhere. “Orange is committed to working with the very best partners to deliver pioneering new services such as Orange smartnumbers.  Our relationship with Resilient Networks is only the first step in our drive into the healthcare market.  With Resilient, Orange will be providing the technology to meet the needs of patients, professionals, managers and IT administrators, and public and private health providers alike.”